The night of Gemini is frigid, a harsh, biting cold as the frost in the street is illuminated by the glow of the planet's twin above. The streets are empty, the shops all closed, and a strange, almost inaudible hum of machinery emanates from the sewer grate in front of the machine shop as it sits in the dark, closed for the night. Inside, beside the massive bulk of the complex holo-printer, a bolt breaks through the cement floor, sending small bits of dust into the air. Several more follow suit, sending cracks shooting through the floor between them as a circle forms around the machine.
Beneath the streets, at least a hundred taidarens toil in the darkness, clicking, whistling, and singing merely as several groups of triplets with multiple hands showing missing fingers scuttle their way to the front of the pack where a massive makeshift collection of scaffolding has been set up, with pulleys and winches strapped this way and that all leading to a number of gas powered motors idling on standby. They climb the scaffolding, clutching their bags, and one by one pull out a series of small looking cubes of putty, sticking each one in a slender line along the carved out underside of the shop above. The taidarens around them dive into the waters below and scurry away as the set of triplets empty their bags one by one, tossing them onto their backs, each covered in a patchwork of flame resistant cloth, and they begin attaching the wires to the metal bolts, the small, durable detonators drilled into the concrete.
...Remind me what they're supposed to be doing, again?
Samuel Stewart
Shadowrunning
Jaxon Taylor
Stealing a 3D printer for us.
Anthony Moore
Stealing shit so we can make fake IDs
Isaac Sanders
A shuttle carefully docks with your ship, the Orphan, holding a rather conspicuously looking reinforced metal block covered in dents in its cargo clamps. A number of its loading arms unfold and carefully pluck the box, which shakes periodically, from the firm grip of its clamps and slides it through space the short distance to the waiting cargo bay pod connected to the Orphan's hull spine. As the cargo doors seal and the shuttle departs, your clones return to their typical activities, only occasionally startled by the muffled roars of the predatory beast taken aboard from within its sealed container.
Your clone drops off the small tribble back at the ship, and quickly makes his way through the myriad of corridors and twisting hallways filled with market stalls and shouting merchants peddling strange and exotic goods from all over known space, much of which, you note, seems painfully overpriced. Nearly a quarter of the way around the station's habitation ring and up a small elevator to half way through one of the ring's spokes is the office of the Valen official you have been waiting to speak with regarding your hive-produced merchandise. The doors open to a short hallway lined with chairs of various shapes and designs, and a desk next to a closed door where an incredibly uninterested woman sits typing something on a computer.
cont.
Henry Wilson
A moment later the door opens, and you hear a loud blast of air like someone hitting the keyboard of a pipe organ with a sledge hammer, and a trio of taidarens flee in random squiggling paths, scurrying across the room like panicked rodents. Your thinkers quickly interpret the shouting as you hear a blaring error report from what you assume is a translator program malfunctioning from the enraged slurring curses being said.
"Away you parasites! You sentient ticks looking to suck my wealth dry! You useless, gnawing..." the efforts of your thinkers begin to fail, although they manage to get the general idea of a kind of dog sized parasitic animal similar to the human head louse known to colonize the gill-covered waterlogged underside of the Valen body, causing a rather painful bleeding rash. The image is not flattering, to say the least.
The door closes again as the taidarens pass your clone.
"You are rude!" "Bad at business!" "Pass on good deals, yes." "Yes! Was wise investment!" "Double money, more, triple!" "Cannot fail!"
The group quickly enter the elevator as the door closes, and the woman behind the desk looks up at you.
"Next." She says. Your clone walks up to the desk and she slides a small piece of paper across the table with a pen. Your clone quickly fills it out, including the ship's given ID, account, and various generalizations regarding the quantity, size, and legal status of the fusion reactors in question, mostly through check boxes and binary questions. Your clone slides it back to the woman as she chews her bubble gum and glances at her personal data pad.
"He's in a bad mood, so you should keep it quick." She says. "Parently a mating deal went bad a week too late and he's stuck a seller in a buyer's market." She stifels a slight giggle, as if she finds some level of schadenfreude in the statement.
>Ask for details >Head straight into the meeting >Other
Jeremiah Roberts
>>Head straight into the meeting
Joshua Butler
>Head straight into the meeting
Jace Perez
>Head straight into the meeting
None'a my business, lady.
Elijah White
>>Head straight into the meeting >dealing with space jews
Colton Brooks
>Head straight into the meeting I'm interested but we're here for business
Luis Taylor
>>Head straight into the meeting
Lincoln Butler
Man I've missed this quest and all it's characters.
Y-You're not gonna die again, are you QuestDrone?
Mason Perry
The hive merely recycled him and Hatched a new drone, this one needed a longer gestation due to its modifications
Aiden Wright
>Head straight into the meeting I suppose we can ask him personally, if he's interested in future business.
Alexander Bailey
Oh shit you're back! Joy!
Jace Cox
Your clone gives the young woman a confused glance and she stifles a laugh.
"Hey, just warning you." She says, and buzzes open the door.
Your clone walks in, finding the interior of the office more akin to a bath house than a place of business. It is a large blank tiled square chamber filled with water. The side of the room your clone stands on offers a decently sized ledge with several seats placed here and there looking out over the murky water. Several incredibly large levers are set along the sides of the ledge, each covered in deep scratch marks along the heavy metal handles and several holoscreens set up in the middle, one of average size, and one more akin to a cinema projector. There is a calm sounding digital voice that pipes in through speakers in the ceiling and the small holoscreen reads out a moving, twisting collection of Valen text reading out the various forms and paperwork of the Orphan's cargo sitting in the station.
"What is it you want?"
"I think the paperwork should-"
"Paperwork lies. I wish to hear it for myself." The mechanical voice offers no emotion itself, much like Coil's own translator, but you still can feel some amount of aggravation.
cont.
Kayden Martinez
QD, I just want you to know that I have twenty-five tabs of porn open, and I'm putting them all on hold for this thread. You're more important to me than even the lewdest onee-chan.
Joshua Parker
The water stirs, bubbles breaking the surface, and several large spikes erupt from below. They spray water as they blast out air with a massive conch shell echoing around the far too small chamber for such volume. The spike continue to rise, more adding to the growing forest, until a vast shell emerges. Vibrantly colored wax coated cloth strips are tied between the giant blow pipes, and the water crashes over the sides of the platform, pooling around several drains.
As the shell settles in its place, two massive limbs, each like a cargo crane, unfolds from the sides and comes crashing down on the sides of the platform where you note there is a large set of rubber pads with a small indented button for each of the massive scythe-like fingers. Its head emerges last, lifting itself with some apparent effort. It is nearly the size of a small car alone, the countless spiralling rows of teeth the size of traffic cones and roughly the shape, with a thorn covered funnel of spikes pointing inwards going down to a massive gullet. Four tongues, each tucked into a bulbous gland, licks over the Valen's palette, picking at something that looks like a two meter long alligator skeleton before pulling it back down the pit of a throat, dislodging it from its gums with a wet sucking sound. The lipless maw is obviously incapable of closing, but the circular flower of teeth and muscular, pedal shaped jaws compress themselves so as to bare the least number of teeth it can.
Four eyes on a set of stalks emerge from around the head, each one perched just behind the hinge of one of the jaws. They lengthen until the stalks are nearly a meter in length each, although wrinkling along the skin hints at them being capable of extending much further, and the curving, 'w'shaped slits narrow, focusing on your clone as its breathless maw wafts a pungent smell like fish from a dumpster in the height of summer.
Cont.
Sebastian Hernandez
fuckin beautiful
Joseph Hernandez
Dude, breath mints.
Jordan Gonzalez
Well, those Valen (or at least this valen) really needs to first impressions. A Kraken sounds less terrifying.
Andrew Howard
...
Gabriel Harris
I'm gonna assume we are memorizing as much of the rooms structure as we can so we can build it on the diplomacy dockyard.
Camden Cruz
[screams internally]
Hunter Gutierrez
Something like this but more alive and with more teeth?
Nicholas Brooks
I LIKE Valen, they're described as incredibly empathetic too.
I love your Aliens QD
Zachary Hall
The Valen's shell bursts into a single-handed symphony as the hollow spines spray water and steamy breath into the air, each with its own unique note. A moment later the translator spins the text hovering before you, and the speaker reads it aloud.
"I am Counts and Remembers Secrets in Dark Waters. I am the engineering representative. I oversee quality assurance of all things entering and leaving this station." The computer voice is bland, but your thinkers in their over-calculating analysis find some hints of dissatisfaction in the statement. "This includes your 'reactors' you wish to unload here."
The screen in front of you shows the results of a rudimentary surface scan of your reactors. They offer little in useful technical information, but indicate no pathogens were detected and no concealed explosives or unregistered chemical components were found, allowing them access to the station itself. A holographic image of the reactor itself, a large, boubous torrus shape of sculpted metal and twisting helixes of pulsing carbon lattice tubes filled with plasma spiralling out, up, and back down through a complex pattern like the home of a funnel web spider, projects into the air. Next to it is another reactor labeled as "closest match found", a bulky looking stellarator branded from a subsidiary of Olympus shipyards called an Neuman 1 series multi-injected plasma funnel reactor, although it is much smaller in size and seems marketed as an engine for single seat sublight racing craft.
"What are the specifications of this design?" The Valen asks. His eyes focus on your clone.
>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse >It's a native design engineered from alien ruins in the Expanse >It's a native design by locals in the Expanse >Other
Jackson Morgan
>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse
No need to spill the beans on our covert op yet. We can always create an "engineer" if we need to. An eccentric genius who sells lots of valuable "custom" items.
Oliver Butler
>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse Were entering the galactic stage soon after all
Wyatt Rogers
>>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse Keep it low for now.
Brayden Green
>>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse
Benjamin Mitchell
>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse Toss that bait in there. This guy should be able to smell money.
Benjamin Butler
>>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse
Camden King
>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
Cooper Ramirez
>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse As long as we get him to agree to keep this on the down low for the time being, this is fine. We're going to be making ourselves known very soon anyway.
Joseph Moore
I just realized. Of the three of these, the alien ruins answer is the least true. We (or at least our thinkers) could be considered engineers. The Hive generally is also more "native" to the expanse than either the Valen or the humans. Just something funny to think about.
Jason Wright
>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse
Dylan Brown
>It's a custom design built by an engineer living in the Expanse
Jayden Nelson
>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
Hudson Robinson
>>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
Noah Jenkins
>The Hive generally is also more "native" to the expanse than either the Valen or the humans. Not really, we arrived on our homeplanet later than the humans did.
We just colonise better.
Our native roots lay beyond what the others define as "the Expanse".
Elijah Ward
>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
Sebastian Wright
>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
This should intrigue the engineers and those processing information harvested from cargo scans. That alone should buy our way in.
Asher Young
The humans dont have to know whrn we got there. Besdies, gardener was there thousands of years ago so we're technically native, just lapsed.
Jace Carter
I've been waiting for this!
Luis Ramirez
Shit, Mom was on Earth's moon before humans crawled out of caves.
Ryan Campbell
We need that valen contact soon too, but I am not sure if this one is the best...he/she/it just oversees cargo going in and out of station. Although this valen could have usefull contacts.
Either the engineer or native excuse, both are fine
Nicholas Rivera
So are we sending a hive ship with a speaker to visit the valen trading post or are we setting up our own trading post in one of our systems after this?
Jaxon Lopez
>>It's a native design by locals in the Expanse
Robert Sanchez
I guess we are letting confederate smugglers onto our trading post first and let the valen follow them to us then?
Sebastian Ward
Reminder that the crystals nearly made humans extinct 70,000 years ago.
i want to send a trading dockyard in the valen colony next to us and broadcast commercials.
James Gomez
Mom probably messed with the humans in the first place, it wasn't chance that the humans have anti psi genes in them after all
Liam Foster
I was planning negotiating with them for control of Tannhauser once we came onto the galactic scene. We need to search for more skyl artifacts, and it's right smack dab in the middle of our territory. Make for a good trading center, what with it's hypergates in place.
Isaiah Cruz
So we need a speaker to act as a rogue trader then
Leo Ross
Don't tell the humans that, though. They'll become almost as paranoid as we are.
Ethan Mitchell
Holy shit the dates match
Joseph Turner
I don't know, Elizabeth figured out that mom played with early human genetic development already
Connor Wilson
>White queen finds proto-humans. >Alters them so that they cant translate psy signals >Crystals find out and try to kill humanity, mother saves them. Just imagine the commonwealth reaction if they find out when they take earth.
Henry Perez
So while we wait, I've been looking into star wars for research inspiration. A couple of things stood out (besides lightsabers and force-related stuff).
First was the small ships, and the insane variety there was. Our gunships are supposed to be bomber equivalents, but sw seems better equipped for that. Then there's the fighters that have four weapons emplacement instead to two, and some of them can rotate to shoot at pursuers. Speaking of weapons, the B-wing's combi-laser which can take out a sub-capital was really rad. Then other utility stuff like solar panels on TIEs and Vulture and Hyena droids being able to walk and patrol docking bays and air bases (the later of which has two heads, even). Is it possible to later implant anything like that on our smallships and make them more versatile like our larger ships?
Alexander Martinez
I don't think she has considered that, she only knows our mother was on the moon and that humans can't translate psy signals. We might have to hint at the connection though, maybe we should send another expedition to earth and establish contact with that robot.
Owen Turner
IS THIS QUEST DRONES PLAN? TO MAKE THE CRAZY ALIEN MAN RIGHT?
Ryan Nelson
Starwars operate on an airforce combat style, so the fighter jets get all the attention
This quest operates on a more navel combat style, so more focus on the fleet maneuvers themselves than any specific ships
Xavier Bailey
Crazy Aliens Man died hundreds of years ago user.
Brody Morris
Doesnt mean he was wrong.
Dylan Johnson
Then who was that on the show we watched when spying? >There's a secret cult built around him
Jackson Ross
Yeah, that makes sense. Neat stuff though. Of course, some of it are actually kind of useless or stupid as well. Like the Laserweb Defense System, which if a bunch of asteroids connected by electrical energy to form a net and destroy fighters trying to fly through. It works in sw because there asteroids are all bunched up together for some reason, but it doesn't work on a real asteroid belt since they're much farther apart as to not constantly collide and fly everywhere.
Hunter Campbell
LIES!? ITS BACK!? QD WHERE WERE YOU!?!?! Welcome back!
Brayden Bell
Vote Bitch
Adam Parker
QM hell, probably. They say that once a year, a tortured soul is petmitted to leave to finish their earthly deeds.
Anthony Jenkins
I hope they let out SpiderQM soon.
Sebastian Johnson
"It was designed by locals found in the expanse." Your clone says. "It recycles plasma through multiple fuel cycles by using natural imperfections in the magnetic containment field to siphon off plasma into sub-reactors built through the power helix, and sending it back into the main reactor. The process makes it more stable than a stellarator and more efficient than a tokamak." Your clone points out various devices along the seemingly random ripples of the reactor's melted looking metal surface with a smug smile. "I can't speak for any Valen designs though."
The Valen keeps his gaze locked onto your clone, squinting. Your thinkers examine his facial expressions, Elizabeth halting in the hive tunnels as if queasy as she guides your thinkers through a mental crash course in xeno-psychology and Valen emotional science, which you are surprised is a thing complex enough to deserve its own class. The Valen shows mistrust, confusion, and a twitch of panic races across the eyes, the boub-like eyeballs filling with a smoky color that runs along the normally dark blue sclera, and then confusion again.
"What is your name?" The valen asks. Your clone scratches his head briefly.
"John Spreckels." The clone says. The valen continues to stare at you in confusion.
"You say locals made these?" He asks, your clone nods. "From where exactly did they originate?"
>G-426 (Leeland) >A planet called Leeland >Refuse to say >Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract >Other
That was actually the best thing that channel made in years. For sure one of their best mini series. I was actually impressed, although that may at least partially be because I was expecting absolute garbage and cheap romanian actors going off script of the book.
True, although delta-V is high enough so that ships do need to worry about them. That patch of nothing with the rare rock every thousand kilometers gets a lot denser when you plow through it at a quarter c.
Jacob Cook
Or damp.
Brandon Ortiz
I wish vedibere would be released but i don't think they do third chances.
In either case, this year it was QD and now we have to wait another.
Blake Sullivan
He got out of hell too, now he just needs to start writing
Cameron Price
>A planet called Leeland >Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract Let's throw him a bit of a bone. It's not like anyone else but us even knows Leeland exists in it's current state.
Wyatt Scott
>>Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract
Daniel Flores
>G-426 (Leeland)
Jack Howard
I'm worried some of the higher ups might make the connection, though.
'Leeland? What the hell kinda name is Lee- oh...hm...'
Oliver Cruz
>Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract >A planet called Leeland
There is absolutely no reason to tell him what or where Leeland is of course. And no proper reason for him to ask other than to try to cut out middle men.
Lucas Bailey
>Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract Is that Binding? and no reference to our capital world
Jordan Carter
>>A planet called Leeland >Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract
Aiden Sanders
But those are Valen. And what are the odds that Killinger has spooks trawling Valen info-nets and finding that very specific bit of information?
Blake Lopez
>>A planet called Leeland Cheeky answer.
Why is this space whale worried? They want to trade, right?
Joseph Edwards
So if we have to give him coordinates of one of moms worlds
Christopher Ross
>>Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract
Joshua Garcia
If he is confused and panicked, now is the time to press for an agreement. He still might just walk away from the deal if he gets too emotional.
Jace Garcia
What did he run?
David Hall
Because the design will revolutionize their energy production industry, and he is trying to figure out 1: Why we came to him 2: Is this a trick of some kind 3: Can he easily screw us over
Noah Reyes
>Refuse to say until after he signs a branding contract. >A planet called Leeland. QD, can we write a contract that specifies if it breaks contract and allows information about us to spread to the union without our consent we invade a valen gate with our military and reverse engineer it? Scare him into not thinking about ratting us out
