For Anticipation of Victory, the day – such as it was - began much like any other. On the Gateway, it didn't much matter; the vast station was a hive of activity at all times, never resting or slowing, not even for a minute.
It was a defiant shout to the universe, the colossal orbital; the Dominions were on their knees, bloody but unbowed, and Gateway was a sign of that. Tenacity, that's what it was – perhaps slightly demented, clinging to their damaged mothership and the lifestyle which now glimmered, elusive, far above even the reach of the most highly-placed.
Far above, in point of fact, even the laurelled Empress, even with their neural filigree and every advantage the damaged Illustrious could afford. No more were wishes and desires a mere flicker of thought away – now, they had to be worked and striven for.
Today, Victory was short and slight, silvery skin and bright crimson hair, childlike in every respect but the brain and – as always – perfectly, perfectly androgynous; what they actually were was anyone's guess, day-to-day. Cupid's-bow lips quirked into a wry smile as the little figure looked down from their glittering chamber high in one of Gateway's many towers, gaze travelling over shimmering metal skin and down towards the planet that was, out of necessity, the new home of the Ordered Dominions.
Gateway had been positioned perfectly over the terminator line, although in truth the distinction was quite arbitrary, on Tenefuge. The planet's nightside burned with a biological glow, the rainbowed radiance of a million plants and animals glittering and glimmering like the finest and most intricate filigree imaginable.
And were that not enough to banish the dark, the atmosphere crawled and crackled with a million shimmering curtains of electric fire, planet-spanning aurorae that were the tangible evidence for the enormous flux tube that stretched between vibrant Tenefuge and its vast and icy gas giant parent. Great arcs and curves of cold blue light snaked across the curve of the atmosphere, dancing in the Empress' dark eyes as they looked down on their nation.
They spent a lot of time looking down on it, these days. Stars above knew this wasn't what they had expected, when arriving in Andromeda; part of the reason they had so few people, compared to the number they'd set out with, was the strain of having to adapt to a reality in which hobbytech was the working pinnacle of Dominion achievement. A depressingly large number of people had demanded to be put back in cold-sleep, or else had synthed masses of Paradise and just laid down to dream of better times, passing the buck to those with the fortitude to carry on.
Whether they liked it or not, here in Andromeda the Dominions were reliant on the hobbyists amongst their population, the slightly weird people who liked looking back at history and making use of anachronisms, things and methods, modes of thought and living that the Dominions as a whole had long since grown out of.
Like fusion power, natural-gravity starships, O'Neill cylinders, carbon nanotubes...the list was endless, and now represented the cutting edge of their technology.
The Empress frowned, and then synthed some Clarity with barely a thought. In short order, the drug was coursing through their system, bringing with it perspective and a certain cold-hearted, clinical detachment. Emotions were still there, of course – it wasn't a nerve staple or anything so barbaric – but...muted. Shunted off to one side to allow for rational, dispassionate consideration of problems and challenges.
And there were many challenges facing the state.
A sonorous, swelling chime, sweetly insistent, signalled there was something awaiting their attention, the glittering inlays of the chamber twisting their luminance from creamy white to more hadean shades, burgundy and crimson and nacarine light painting the room and dancing in the Empress' impossibly red hair.
Telltale signs of a priority report, in other words. The Prime Minister, down below on Tenefuge as – Victory smiled – their earthly representative, would even now be hearing that same insistent chime, and his vision would be painted in those same violent colours.
Victory received such things more as a courtesy than anything else, but it was good to be up-to-date, nonetheless. And while actual power might be in the hands of the Prime Minister, influence was not a weapon to be discounted.
“What is it, Rapture?” the Empress felt a shiver in the back of their mind, a picosecond burst of electricity as the neural filigree rose to life and holograph emitters in the chamber sparkled into life, writing an ephemeral and vaguely female form in blue light and static charge, one that blinked almost owlishly at Victory.
“Priority report from Astrometrics Array Ulysses, majesty,” the AI intoned, sketching a scrupulously-correct bow. It was odd what survived.
It was a defiant shout to the universe, the colossal orbital; the Dominions were on their knees, bloody but unbowed, and Gateway was a sign of that. Tenacity, that's what it was – perhaps slightly demented, clinging to their damaged mothership and the lifestyle which now glimmered, elusive, far above even the reach of the most highly-placed.
Far above, in point of fact, even the laurelled Empress, even with their neural filigree and every advantage the damaged Illustrious could afford. No more were wishes and desires a mere flicker of thought away – now, they had to be worked and striven for.
Today, Victory was short and slight, silvery skin and bright crimson hair, childlike in every respect but the brain and – as always – perfectly, perfectly androgynous; what they actually were was anyone's guess, day-to-day. Cupid's-bow lips quirked into a wry smile as the little figure looked down from their glittering chamber high in one of Gateway's many towers, gaze travelling over shimmering metal skin and down towards the planet that was, out of necessity, the new home of the Ordered Dominions.
Gateway had been positioned perfectly over the terminator line, although in truth the distinction was quite arbitrary, on Tenefuge. The planet's nightside burned with a biological glow, the rainbowed radiance of a million plants and animals glittering and glimmering like the finest and most intricate filigree imaginable.
And were that not enough to banish the dark, the atmosphere crawled and crackled with a million shimmering curtains of electric fire, planet-spanning aurorae that were the tangible evidence for the enormous flux tube that stretched between vibrant Tenefuge and its vast and icy gas giant parent. Great arcs and curves of cold blue light snaked across the curve of the atmosphere, dancing in the Empress' dark eyes as they looked down on their nation.
They spent a lot of time looking down on it, these days. Stars above knew this wasn't what they had expected, when arriving in Andromeda; part of the reason they had so few people, compared to the number they'd set out with, was the strain of having to adapt to a reality in which hobbytech was the working pinnacle of Dominion achievement. A depressingly large number of people had demanded to be put back in cold-sleep, or else had synthed masses of Paradise and just laid down to dream of better times, passing the buck to those with the fortitude to carry on.
Whether they liked it or not, here in Andromeda the Dominions were reliant on the hobbyists amongst their population, the slightly weird people who liked looking back at history and making use of anachronisms, things and methods, modes of thought and living that the Dominions as a whole had long since grown out of.
Like fusion power, natural-gravity starships, O'Neill cylinders, carbon nanotubes...the list was endless, and now represented the cutting edge of their technology.
The Empress frowned, and then synthed some Clarity with barely a thought. In short order, the drug was coursing through their system, bringing with it perspective and a certain cold-hearted, clinical detachment. Emotions were still there, of course – it wasn't a nerve staple or anything so barbaric – but...muted. Shunted off to one side to allow for rational, dispassionate consideration of problems and challenges.
And there were many challenges facing the state.
A sonorous, swelling chime, sweetly insistent, signalled there was something awaiting their attention, the glittering inlays of the chamber twisting their luminance from creamy white to more hadean shades, burgundy and crimson and nacarine light painting the room and dancing in the Empress' impossibly red hair.
Telltale signs of a priority report, in other words. The Prime Minister, down below on Tenefuge as – Victory smiled – their earthly representative, would even now be hearing that same insistent chime, and his vision would be painted in those same violent colours.
Victory received such things more as a courtesy than anything else, but it was good to be up-to-date, nonetheless. And while actual power might be in the hands of the Prime Minister, influence was not a weapon to be discounted.
“What is it, Rapture?” the Empress felt a shiver in the back of their mind, a picosecond burst of electricity as the neural filigree rose to life and holograph emitters in the chamber sparkled into life, writing an ephemeral and vaguely female form in blue light and static charge, one that blinked almost owlishly at Victory.
“Priority report from Astrometrics Array Ulysses, majesty,” the AI intoned, sketching a scrupulously-correct bow. It was odd what survived.
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“I think you ought to see this, Prime Minister.” Those were the words that woke Mandate of Dominion from her near-somnolence – the Parliament building, of an evening, was very conducive to a nap, especially if there was no truly pressing business to attend to.
Bloodred light, fading fast, flooded through the many windows of the Parliament of Stars building, even as the evening lumiere began – veen trees gently unfurling their purple-glowing tendrils, to attract the moths which danced in dazzling blue patterns across the darkling sky. A million pinpoints of creamy light began to open on the Parliament lawns even as scarlet flowers blazed on the mellow stonework, leaping to fire as the sunlight faded.
For those unfamiliar with the Dominions, they would perhaps have imagined the place to be some foreboding fortress, some great stronghold of a building, patrolled by slab-muscled guards, rather than the pleasant and quietly glorious structure that served the Dominions in that purpose. It was built in a grand style, in keeping with most of the buildings in the new imperial capital, and so blended in with extravagant carvings and lightshow devices, at the centre of a beautiful park that glowed with rainbowed light.
Struggling to sit upright in her high-backed chair, Mandate of Dominion blinked owlishly at the doors to her office, where one of her secretaries stood diffidently, a datapad in hand.
“Mm? Mm, well, what is it?” the Prime Minister asked, struggling for wakefulness and synthing a quick burst of Sagacity to speed up the process.
Sharp eyes scanned the text of the report the secretary had brought, drinking it in and assessing the clues, the raw data and – most importantly – the implications.
“This gone to the Empress?” she asked, sharply, bright eyes flicking up to the functionary who fidgeted, unsure, on the threshold.
“Yes, Luminary,” came the respectful reply.
“Good. Distribute this to the Cabinet, meeting at the fourth bell of the morning.” A curtsey, and a shimmering away of the secretary.
Mandate of Dominion exhaled, long and slow, reading once more over the report. It was brief, succinct and to the point, the message spelt out in dull black and white.
An unknown object, massive and obviously artificial, approaching against the general course of the galaxy, on a collision course with the Shimmerene Nebula that wrapped the region. The long-range telescopes of the monitoring array had picked it up, a darker blot against the backdrop of stars, and had tracked the anomaly as a matter of course, directing more of the autonomous scopes to scrutinize that little region, resolving it more and more as greater and greater processing power was directed towards it.
Probes were the obvious answer; the question was whether the Empress and the Cabinet would think along the same lines. Sending an actual ship would be a waste of resources; a hyperdrive-equipped probe, with communications equipment, would be the most elegant solution.
Bloodred light, fading fast, flooded through the many windows of the Parliament of Stars building, even as the evening lumiere began – veen trees gently unfurling their purple-glowing tendrils, to attract the moths which danced in dazzling blue patterns across the darkling sky. A million pinpoints of creamy light began to open on the Parliament lawns even as scarlet flowers blazed on the mellow stonework, leaping to fire as the sunlight faded.
For those unfamiliar with the Dominions, they would perhaps have imagined the place to be some foreboding fortress, some great stronghold of a building, patrolled by slab-muscled guards, rather than the pleasant and quietly glorious structure that served the Dominions in that purpose. It was built in a grand style, in keeping with most of the buildings in the new imperial capital, and so blended in with extravagant carvings and lightshow devices, at the centre of a beautiful park that glowed with rainbowed light.
Struggling to sit upright in her high-backed chair, Mandate of Dominion blinked owlishly at the doors to her office, where one of her secretaries stood diffidently, a datapad in hand.
“Mm? Mm, well, what is it?” the Prime Minister asked, struggling for wakefulness and synthing a quick burst of Sagacity to speed up the process.
Sharp eyes scanned the text of the report the secretary had brought, drinking it in and assessing the clues, the raw data and – most importantly – the implications.
“This gone to the Empress?” she asked, sharply, bright eyes flicking up to the functionary who fidgeted, unsure, on the threshold.
“Yes, Luminary,” came the respectful reply.
“Good. Distribute this to the Cabinet, meeting at the fourth bell of the morning.” A curtsey, and a shimmering away of the secretary.
Mandate of Dominion exhaled, long and slow, reading once more over the report. It was brief, succinct and to the point, the message spelt out in dull black and white.
An unknown object, massive and obviously artificial, approaching against the general course of the galaxy, on a collision course with the Shimmerene Nebula that wrapped the region. The long-range telescopes of the monitoring array had picked it up, a darker blot against the backdrop of stars, and had tracked the anomaly as a matter of course, directing more of the autonomous scopes to scrutinize that little region, resolving it more and more as greater and greater processing power was directed towards it.
Probes were the obvious answer; the question was whether the Empress and the Cabinet would think along the same lines. Sending an actual ship would be a waste of resources; a hyperdrive-equipped probe, with communications equipment, would be the most elegant solution.
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“By now, we've all read the report, I trust,” Mandate opened the discussion, her tone slightly foreboding, low tones ringing around the sumptuous chamber. “Opinions?”
There were a few moments of silence as the assembled Cabinet – and the Empress, in holographic form – gathered their collective thoughts, before – under the silent heat of Mandate of Dominion's gaze, the Science Minister, Light of Reason, spoke up.
“Well,” he began, voice light and oddly hesitant, a distinctive and fashionable vocal tic that set him apart a little. “Really, I think we need more information, before we do anything rash. The report is concerning, I quite agree with Orison's findings there, but we mustn't be hasty. Our foothold here is still awfully tenuous,” he admitted, dismay rippling across his features for a moment.
The Prime Minister regarded him stoically for several moments, her dark stare aiming to pull more out of him. But, exceptional scientist and administrator he might have been, politics was still something he was relatively new to, and the subtle hint for more details went unnoticed.
“Would you develop your point some more?” she asked, after the interval had stretched a little too long.
“Oh! Well, ah, it's my view that, as I said, we should see about getting more information indirectly, before doing anything else. I was thinking if we sent commands to the monitoring array to disperse, we could get a broader parallax return and-” he stopped, perhaps seeing the blank faces. “We could increase the effective size of our telescopes and get a better picture of what this thing actually is.”
Mandate blinked; this was not an option she'd considered. “Would that take very long?”
“Not long at all!” came the cheery reply. “We can have signals away in minutes. It would take a few hours, at least, for the telescopes to move into new positions, but really not all that long.”
There was a murmuring susurrus of agreement to this from the other members of the Cabinet; a quick voice vote saw that portion of the plan approved.
“We should consider possible responses that we might have to look at once we have the better images from the monitoring array,” the Empress prompted, all eyes turning to the hologram at one end of the table. “Our manufacturing capabilities are not what they were.” It had cost them to say that, but someone had to keep reminding the Cabinet that they no longer had ready access to instant fabrication techniques.
“I had originally thought – before your input, Reason – that we might send a probe of some sort. Hyperdrive-equipped, obviously, to get out towards this thing and give us a better idea of what we might be dealing with. Full sensor suite – or as best we can manage, anyway,” the Prime Minister added, with a glance towards the flickering Empress.
A diffident cough came from the pariah of the Cabinet group, the slightly unsettling, acquisitive Arc of Mirrors, who had come to be in charge of the Treasury. It was a terrible harkback, a reminder to all and sundry that the Dominions had had to return to the obsolete concept of money, and with it the spectre of poverty and want.
There had been a proverb in the Dominions, back in the Milky Way: Money is a sign of poverty – and now they were forced, through lack of resources and technology, to go back to that archaic concept, that division between have and have-not.
It was galling, and the Minister of the Treasury was yet another reminder of the fact.
“Does the government think it wise?” he asked. “Moving the monitoring array is fine; that won't cost us more than a few tons of reaction mass – but constructing a probe is a much more expensive undertaking. We have lots of other projects that are crying out for our limited resources – the fusion power project, for instance, is in its final stages and the scientists are hopeful of a major breakthrough in the final hurdles very soon – so should we be considering such a substantial reallocation of resources towards construction of something we may well not even need?”
Silence met the little speech, until Mandate of Dominion took control once more. “I think,” she began, contemplative, “That having a probe on hand, even if we don't use it for this particular...whatever it is...is a wise investment. We are in a new galaxy, with – as much as it pains me to admit it – a fraction of the technology and power we should have, and no realistic way to contact Home. As much information about our surroundings and about possible threats, gathered as early as possible, will mean we can mount a more effective defence if it is called for. I say we build a probe and keep it on standby, in case it does prove necessary or useful. Votes?”
There were a few moments of silence as the assembled Cabinet – and the Empress, in holographic form – gathered their collective thoughts, before – under the silent heat of Mandate of Dominion's gaze, the Science Minister, Light of Reason, spoke up.
“Well,” he began, voice light and oddly hesitant, a distinctive and fashionable vocal tic that set him apart a little. “Really, I think we need more information, before we do anything rash. The report is concerning, I quite agree with Orison's findings there, but we mustn't be hasty. Our foothold here is still awfully tenuous,” he admitted, dismay rippling across his features for a moment.
The Prime Minister regarded him stoically for several moments, her dark stare aiming to pull more out of him. But, exceptional scientist and administrator he might have been, politics was still something he was relatively new to, and the subtle hint for more details went unnoticed.
“Would you develop your point some more?” she asked, after the interval had stretched a little too long.
“Oh! Well, ah, it's my view that, as I said, we should see about getting more information indirectly, before doing anything else. I was thinking if we sent commands to the monitoring array to disperse, we could get a broader parallax return and-” he stopped, perhaps seeing the blank faces. “We could increase the effective size of our telescopes and get a better picture of what this thing actually is.”
Mandate blinked; this was not an option she'd considered. “Would that take very long?”
“Not long at all!” came the cheery reply. “We can have signals away in minutes. It would take a few hours, at least, for the telescopes to move into new positions, but really not all that long.”
There was a murmuring susurrus of agreement to this from the other members of the Cabinet; a quick voice vote saw that portion of the plan approved.
“We should consider possible responses that we might have to look at once we have the better images from the monitoring array,” the Empress prompted, all eyes turning to the hologram at one end of the table. “Our manufacturing capabilities are not what they were.” It had cost them to say that, but someone had to keep reminding the Cabinet that they no longer had ready access to instant fabrication techniques.
“I had originally thought – before your input, Reason – that we might send a probe of some sort. Hyperdrive-equipped, obviously, to get out towards this thing and give us a better idea of what we might be dealing with. Full sensor suite – or as best we can manage, anyway,” the Prime Minister added, with a glance towards the flickering Empress.
A diffident cough came from the pariah of the Cabinet group, the slightly unsettling, acquisitive Arc of Mirrors, who had come to be in charge of the Treasury. It was a terrible harkback, a reminder to all and sundry that the Dominions had had to return to the obsolete concept of money, and with it the spectre of poverty and want.
There had been a proverb in the Dominions, back in the Milky Way: Money is a sign of poverty – and now they were forced, through lack of resources and technology, to go back to that archaic concept, that division between have and have-not.
It was galling, and the Minister of the Treasury was yet another reminder of the fact.
“Does the government think it wise?” he asked. “Moving the monitoring array is fine; that won't cost us more than a few tons of reaction mass – but constructing a probe is a much more expensive undertaking. We have lots of other projects that are crying out for our limited resources – the fusion power project, for instance, is in its final stages and the scientists are hopeful of a major breakthrough in the final hurdles very soon – so should we be considering such a substantial reallocation of resources towards construction of something we may well not even need?”
Silence met the little speech, until Mandate of Dominion took control once more. “I think,” she began, contemplative, “That having a probe on hand, even if we don't use it for this particular...whatever it is...is a wise investment. We are in a new galaxy, with – as much as it pains me to admit it – a fraction of the technology and power we should have, and no realistic way to contact Home. As much information about our surroundings and about possible threats, gathered as early as possible, will mean we can mount a more effective defence if it is called for. I say we build a probe and keep it on standby, in case it does prove necessary or useful. Votes?”
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-The upper echelons of the Dominions are made aware of the approaching anomaly.
-The anomaly is discussed and a two-pronged approach is taken; the array which initially detected the anomaly is to be widened to gain greater resolution and alternative viewpoints, and secondly fabrication of a probe to investigate further is begun.
-The anomaly is discussed and a two-pronged approach is taken; the array which initially detected the anomaly is to be widened to gain greater resolution and alternative viewpoints, and secondly fabrication of a probe to investigate further is begun.
((OOC: @NickinTy is next! ))
