Hyperion to Mauwairi
Alternate timeline where the Hyperion Federation interacts with another world.
Credits to Kyliera for contributing their lore.
Recommended reading:
Blue Text - Hyperion Federation Point of View
Green Text - Mauwairi Point of View
White Text - Both POV's Roughly Equal I highly recommend to view this article in dark theme. Click on the "Abc" buttons at the bottom of the picture of the starship at the top of this page. This page is highly work in progress!
Neutron27 was the Yunkad captain of a massive Hyperion - Class Worldship Carrier, named T.S. Lepton of the Stars, deployed to several foreign systems to fulfill an exploration duty across the stars. A particularly small star cluster - located about 7 Mly under where the Kenarus galaxy was. No one knew it yet, but what they would find would rock the HSA to the core and simultaneously challenge everything they knew about the stars.
Ship Operator: "Yes captain, jumping to JE-48 immeidately."
Ship PA: "IGWD jump to the 'JE-48' System Initiate. Inflating micro-wormholes."
Neutron27: "Something in space is emitting small heat signatures. Seems to be more or less consistent with Troznux heat signatures, which is strange."
"Well Captain, we are soon to find out..."
Ship PA: "Micro-wormhole detected. Error is 6.8 light-years. Warping."
"Already? That was quick." It has been an ordinary night like any other on Mauwairi.
Except for one anomaly.
At one moment, everyone on the planet could see another star appear in the sky, from seemingly nothing. This would remain and burn like any other, for a few seconds, before vanishing as suddenly as it appeared.
It's only a small detail, but with potentially massive scientific implications. Most thought nothing of it. If anything, a small moment of “huh. That was strange.” And then continuing on with their night.
But it was a very different story for the astronomers who were looking at the sky that night. It began with messages between a few friends… “hey, did you see this too?”. They met up at an observatory to compare observations, “footage”, and to see if the resident SkyWatcher had caught any of it. They wasted no time in waking up the Reviewer, an organic device purposed to access memories and replay them. The three friends decided to start with themselves, one by one, and then the SkyWatcher. However, due to the finite speed of light, this image would be several years out of date. But was it?
The SkyWatcher finds out that this 'starlight' was actually comprised of tachyon radiation - particles which travel faster than the speed of light. Despite the fact that tachyons were proven to not exist many times.
Possibly of even more interest, it managed to construct an image of a massive object. the astronomers were shocked. They restarted the reviewer’s process a few times, to double check that it wasn’t a mistake. Impossible radiation aside, the thing that appeared on the reviewer was completely unfamiliar. Other than its tapered front, it bore no resemblance to anything, living or unliving, in space or terrestrial, that they had seen before. Running it through the mycelial database to cross reference turned up nothing, even from The Everseeker’s data! It was so strange in its angularity, its perfect symmetry, the symbols they could barely make out. It had a vague sense of purposefulness to it, almost like, but at the same time completely different from, their biotech. It made some of the scientists very uneasy, while it piqued the curiosity of others, and puzzled the rest (much to their frustration)! Personal opinions aside, they all knew that what they had just found was a discovery that could change everything, if they could only figure out what it was. They proceeded to notify every astronomer, researcher, bioengineer, or other scientist in the guild. The word spread quickly, and soon, a summit was organized. This summit/conference was likely the biggest one since the discovery of the fungal asteroid reef. It was held at the Capital, which was home to the largest and most advanced science facility on the planet. All the top minds were there, either in person or, if they couldn’t get there in time, via gel proxies (like holograms, but gel). The observers who first called the summit had prepared a presentation… although they had underestimated how many people were going to be there. A few of them were quite nervous, and that only increased when they saw something that they could only assume was a proxy of The Everseeker, although the form was unclear due to the distance. If They had come back to the planet’s orbit for this, it must have been an even bigger discovery than they first thought. They gave their presentation, showing the image and tachyon radiation readings for all to see. A vast discussion of many differing theories followed, none of which could be proven or completely outruled by the data they currently had. So they ultimately decided that the best course of action was to send The Everseeker to the last known location of the mysterious object to gather more data.
curious… very curious. The Everseeker proceeded to create a wormhole, quickly returning to Mauwairi’s orbit, while still keeping their senses trained on the objects. They sent down all their data, including the pictures. Neutron27: "According to closer scans, they are not troznux. They are definately some sort of biological starship though - we have probably just discovered a new species. Notify the HSA."
"Yes Captain, notifying."
Neutron27: "I would presume they would want us to study them deeper though, so initiate FTL jump to that system, but we should exist just outside of the system, in case they percieve it as an attack on their breeding ground or something."
Ship Helms: "Yes sir, initiating warp to the JE-48 system."
Neutron27: "Actually, Banokrol, can you use your green eye to communicate out intent?"
Banokrol was a Rih'kiel with a special ability - his green, glowing eye would allow him to telepathically communicate with any being in sight. Use of this ability would cause injury to him though - so they used ot sparingly.
Banokrol: "You sure?"
Neutron27: "It's the logical option, we dont want to engage them. Too many unknown variables."
Banokrol: "Yes.. sir.. moving." While they weren’t able to tell what exactly the objects were made of, the FTL was certainly a development… an inanimate object couldn’t do that… so the objects must be alive, or at least have a living component.
They decided to wait until the objects, no, beings(?), stopped traveling, and then try to make contact, or at least evaluate the beings’ intentions and communicate to the unknown beings that their own intentions of benevolent curiosity.
As the extremely bright objects tore through the space at immense speeds, they rapidly came very close to the system. If they were to continue, they would shoot past the system and every planet in less than a second.
This did not happen however. As suddenly as ever, they stopped moving just outside the orbit of the coldest planet in the system. They continued to shine extremely bright, but this massive energy signature slowly began to die down. They would just remain there, in high stellar orbit.
It was odd that these things had enough energy for all this. If it were these things causing the star to appear and vanish, it could be very possible they somehow had the equivalent of an entire Dyson Sphere as a power source. What if these were magic starships? Extra dimensional travellers? Forces of God? This sudden stop did not puzzle the scientists nearly as much as the use of energy. There could be many logical reasons to stop there… the main one being to observe the system. This excited many of the scientists, as that could be evidence of beings that were, like them, inquisitive and driven by a desire to learn. However, the sheer amount of energy??? What could possibly have that much at its disposal?? While the theory of it being some kind of creature still held strong (inanimate objects don’t behave like that in the slightest), this was beyond what could easily be explained because it was completely different from anything they’d seen. These beings were either incredibly advanced, beyond even that of the whales (who were already nearly impossible to communicate with, since they were on an entirely other level of sapience!), or they weren’t from this dimension, or both. Either way, it was clear there was a lot to be learned, even though these developments would probably mean they wouldn’t be able to communicate with beings clearly beyond their current understanding, at least, not without filters… which would likely take many years to perfect, as even the filters for the whales are still in the testing stage. The immense energy signatures continue to reduce in size until reaching a certain point. This certain point, though, is still massive. The bunch of creatures then move to a slightly lower stellar orbit, entering the system. They are sending out occasional tachyon 'pings'. The largest one, the 14 km one, fires out a large number of smaller objects, which all disperse across the system to different worlds and points of interest. One smaller fungal whale, which happened to be nearby at the time, eventually spots a very small, faint green light on the largest mysterious object/creature. Perhaps even more strangely, it gets an odd feeling, almost like some otherworldly entity is telepathically communicating to it. It gets an odd feeling of curiosity, making it almost impossible to look away... Banokrol: "Hello? We come in peace. What's your name?"
Everseeker: “Hello. We too are peaceful, and we are glad that communication is and will be possible… with my other People." when they say “other People”, Banokrol recieves several mental images of a group of creatures… while they vastly differ in appearance, they all share the general body plan of having four arms, one set of which is far bigger and on some seem to have wing membranes connected to them, no back legs, long tails, and four large, innocent and inquisitive eyes. "They want to meet you. I will tell them to prepare.” Banokrol then gets an image of these same people in what appear to be some odd, transparent kind of spacesuit, on top of giant… branches? The image zooms out, showing that they’re at the top of an unspeakably massive tree… one that stretches from the planet’s surface to just above the atmosphere.. and the image continues to zoom out until he can see the entire planet. It wouldn't take long to get a reply. Banokrol: "Our scientists will be so excited to get to understand your race, but to be honest this method of communication is quite unreliable. I'll only be able to keep it up for a while, so I will be quick. You are looking at a fleet of starships of the Hyperion Federation, we are a federation of many different alien species who have unified for the benefit of mutual defence and scientific advancement. This starship I am on - it is called T.S. Lepton of the Stars, and is a Hyperion - class worldship. This is basically an entire city in space. It is interesting to see just how significantly your worlds differ from our own." "To name a few of our species, we have Rih'kiel, Saelians, Suons, humans, Togroid, theres actually quite a lot. I myself am a rih'kiel...
Wait a minute, you are obviously a different species from the ones you've shown me moments ago. Do you protect them from external threats or something? What benefit do you get from it? And that giant tree - is that some sort of space elevator?" Everseeker: “I am… both species." Banokrol is reminded that this mind is seperate, but connected to, the whale. "There is a long story there. The whale you see, and the whale I am woven to, is part of the Reef... The mind of the reef is concentrated in the whales… it is a mind too big for the Nuwaigans, my other people, to communicate with unassisted. They will tell you what happened to me if you ask. but our species are... friends, despite this roadblock. I bridge the barrier, which is why I am talking to you. We, the whales, simply exist here, in space, the Reef… there is nothing to gain other than the joys of learning and living, and to help the ones on the planet learn and grow.”
...
“The World Tree is also part of the Reef, which is another long story. It exists only to exist, but yes… they climb it to reach space.” Banokrol: "Fascinating... we can probably find a way too, our scientists are some of the best in the galaxy cluster." "An organic space elevator though- I have never seen anyth-"
"OW!!"
Just as suddenly as his communication opened, it closed just like that. He did mention that it was quite unreliable... Despite the communication, though, these starships would yet remain an enigma until more effective communication is established. What other secrets would these starships hold?
One of the smaller objects that this ship launched are now getting close to a high orbit around Mauwairi.
Other than that, this fleet remains in this orbit just inside that of the green gas giant. Banokrol: "Ouch!.. The habitable planet.. there is a civilization there. Hand me over to the captain now!"
A nearby officer responded immediately as he gets out a device that would allow him to communicate.
Nearby officer: "Yes, calling."
The officer pushes some buttons on the device while Banokrol gets some tissues that he prepared as to not make a mess with his bleeding eye. Shortly after though, Banokrol is provided a direct line to Neutron27.
Banokrol: "Captain! Ow! There is a civilization on that habitable planet!"
Neutron27: "Affirmative. Do they interact with the bioships?"
Banokrol: "Yes, I jus- OW! - I just spoke to one of the whales! It was so weird, I felt like I was redirected to this.. other mind that is seperate but connected to the bioship!"
Neutron27: "Thats-"
Banokrol: "This other mind appears to be one of the planet people!"
Neutron27: "It.. WHAT?"
Banokrol got the undivided attention of everyone in both his room and the bridge.
Banokrol: "You heard me right Captain! The thing I spoke to is both species! And thats not all!"
Neutron27: "Oh no..."
Banokrol: "There is a huge tree on that planet, the size of a space elevator! It even functions like one! It seems to be connected to the bioships somehow, but I don't know. By the way, they seem to call the bioships 'whales' and the planet people 'nuwaigans'. Both these species are friends, and the thing I spoke to seems to bridge the gap between them. Nuwaigans can't communicate to the whales."
"Additionally, nuwaigans are not humanoid. They have huge wings connecting their huge arms to the body, no legs that I could see, a massive tail, another set of humanlike arms and 4 massive eyes."
Neutron27 didnt believe him.
Neutron27: "Thats impossible. We are going to have to find out ourselves. How long until the drone reaches the habitable planet?"
???: "4 days, 18 hours." The Everseeker, now in a lower orbit around Mauwairi, relays all they had learned to the scientists down below…
The scientists are absolutely delighted by this information, although they did find it odd that the rih’kiel didn’t mention these “starships” when they were listing off species… and why did they say 'organic space elevator' like there was some inoriganic option? They were sure all would be revealed once they were able to have a full conversation… the Everseeker is certainly not very good at explaining things… they had a reputation for being extremely confusing. The upcoming contact with an alien species by now had become big news, attracting the interest of both Nuwaigans and Mautitar alike. People gathered around viewers to watch the contact team - consisting of some of the original scientists as well as communications experts and a few Mautitar representatives and their interpreters - as they ascended the world tree in Crawlers, purposed organisms specifically for going up and down the world tree quickly, donned their gel spacesuits in a building, grown from the world tree itself of course, located near the top, and then proceeding to take their places on one of the highest branches. As the crown of the world tree is approximately 30 kilometres across, they also brought with them large, shimmery fin-like sails - or maybe they were actual giant fins - and many brightly glowing things so the aliens would know exactly where to find them. The whole display was quite beautiful. There was a general air of excitement, joy, and curiosity. As the ~100 m small alien object approaches the world tree more closely, some of the scientists begin to notice something very strange about it's propulsion...
With every other known method to produce force in space, there is always a back blast. The expulsion of these materials is what pushes anything forward, and yet, this alien emits nothing rearwards. It is however apparently being careful not to expose its rear to the tree.
This thing just lingers there, almost as if it is just simply watching the tree from several kilometres above. Is this the entire contact team? Would it even speak the same language? How will we communicate if not?
maybe they hadn’t spotted them?… maybe they didn’t use visuals to navigate? Everything these aliens had done so far was so very, very strange… the seemingly physics breaking propulsion was only the most recent of many things they currently did not understand, so there’s no telling how these species might work.
Therefore, they tried collectively sending out a pulse. It wouldn’t convey anything since that required direct contact, but hopefully the aliens’ senses or receptors or whatever they have would pick it up. Shortly after the pulse was sent, though, it begin sending signals on several different frequencies to many locations on the planet itself. These would carry highly complex mathematical formulae. Is there a meaning behind this? It would take any mathematicians a fair while to figure this out. The signal falls silent and then repeats itself every few minutes.
Due to the altitude difference between the tree and starship, the latter would visibly 'lag' behind the tree as it orbits at a slower speed. It eventually left visual range, much to the disappointment of many. Hopefully, this would be a clue to help them establish communications. Meanwhile, similar objects arrived at many other worlds and points of interest around the system. At least they knew some basic information about this society and their intentions... the contact team was frustrated… based on the readings they had collected, the aliens had definitely recieved the signal. Why weren’t they coming? Did they misinterpret it perhaps??
At about the same time, they received notifications for the many scientists below, across the planet. All saying the same thing, that they had received signals from the aliens. Scientists of all marks started to get to work on decoding it… Meanwhile, the contact team in the tree were trying another idea… sending back frequencies and messages of their own using Communicators. It took a while (and a trip down to the surface) to make the proper modifications to get it to transmit to a location instead of to another communicator, but once it had been properly modified, they began to send things.
The first signal they sent was “Hello! We, the contact team, are here on the top of the world tree. We await you with joy and anticipation!” In their language. They were pretty sure the aliens wouldn’t understand their language, but since they were clearly quite advanced, maybe they’d be able to translate… some scientists were much more skeptical.
The second signal sent, after a few minutes, was a short piece of instrumental music. A rather upbeat and happy tone. Music is one of two universal languages they knew of. While waiting to send a third signal, and debating on what it should be, they got another notification from the scientists down on the planet. The signals they had received appeared to be complex math problems, although they hadn’t been able to figure out the answers yet. So the third signal they sent was also math problems… starting with a couple of simple addition problems and increasing in complexity to the same level as the ones they had been sent. ... Eventually, one particularly clever mathematician was stunned to find out that suddenly they managed to derive an entire message from the equations!
HYPERION SETI SIGNAL
WE WILL TRANSMIT OUR LANGUAGE VIA SETI SIGNAL
RESPOND "JEN-OAU-VTB" TO AFFIRM
In the meantime, some bright flashes are seen around the crown of the world tree. These have left behind people!
With all the bravery he could muster, he would once more look out the window of his starship, look closely on one of the fungal whales within visible range, and then his eyes started glowing bright green once more.
This would quickly attract the whale's attention. Banokrol: "Ouch - we are so sorry for what we have done.
We.. we didn't know that your people would react to that so violently... we still have no idea what we have done. Could yo- ouch - Could you let me know what our contact team did, so that we can avoid the incide-
OW!!" That time the communication didn't last long. This time the individual fell to the floor, his eye bleeding, and reaches to grab some tissues. He could then only hope that this entire civilization would magically forgive them so easily, else this effort would be in vain... They do know that they are still receiving affirmation signals from the nuwaigan scientists trying to decode their language though - so, much to their relief, they knew that at least whatever they did would not cause the deaths of every individual on this planet, which would not be much worse than they presumed would be happening. The Everseeker, having picked up the telepathic communication through the shared mind of the whales, immediately relayed the message to scientists on the surface. Those who weren’t busy on the codes, reorganized a new contact team and attempted to grow new 'energy-proof' spacesuits, or other contact related objects. What started as a more localized endeavor watched by the whole world had become a global effort. The scientists who received this communication were relieved— an apology they clearly considered important enough for one of the aliens to injure themself to communicate it? That is not the act of a hostile entity. This announcement did this much to ease the anxiety of the public, along with the information that both sides were still trying to puzzle out each other’s languages for full communication.
Apparently, this group would speak thousands of different languages, but also had some sort of automatic translation technology that they couldn't use on the Mauwairian languages because they first need to "decode" it.
They would then open a line to one group on the planet and, trying to use only basic features of their language, would try to speak to the scientists. After a few moments of processing what they have learned form the maths transmissions, one person was able to translate it back to:
"Hyperion to Mauwairi, do you read?" During this time (about 3 Cycles on Mauwairi), many scientists had worked tirelessly on decoding the communications.
Meanwhile, the team working on trying to energy-proof suits had been able to devise something that completely blocked out all the Laut’hi when they tested it on the surface, but then again they literally couldn’t simulate anything nearly as energyloud as what had happened on the tree… so they were dubious about whether it would actually fully hold up… it should dampen it at least but ideally the aliens would be able to fix the issue on their end instead. By the end of the week, the communications officers were having a much better time than the team working on suits. When they received the communication, they were estatic… their first full communication!!!
They replied as soon as they were able to:
“Mauwairi to Hyperion, we read you!” It took the hyperionites a few moments to choose their words out of the very limited vocabulary that the nuwaigans were likely to have, but they responded shortly after. After translating that (which would still be slow but would get faster with experience), it read:
"Affirm. Why were you hurt on the tree?" It would be during this moment that every single soul in the entire fleet would hold their breath. If there was one thing they had to receive from them, it would be this. This information would obtain a massive value to them. The nuwaigan scientists would not know it, but this message would be seen by literal millions, possibly even billions, and it was very probable that this moment would make history for both sides. The scientists paused… they had been anticipating this question, but still weren’t quite sure how to answer. The fact that the aliens weren’t affected meant that they weren’t tuned in to Laut’hi, so they wouldn’t have a proper translation for it. After a very tense ten minutes, they finally replied with:
“You, or something with you, was too Energy-loud. It overwhelmed our sixth sense.” it was followed up in a couple of minutes by another message:
“Like a shriek so loud it breaks your ears. But with Energy, not sound.” The scientists were still worried about them not understanding, but they hoped the second message would help clarify and not make things more confusing even with the limited translation, the Hyperionites would get the sense that there is more to this concept of Energy than the normal word 'energy' they’re used to, hence the capitalization. The hyperionites looked at each other when they recieved it. It's a small message with massive implications. Do they have some sort of 6th sense allowing them to track small energy signatures? Did the energy signatures of the contact team overwhelm this?
Regardless, at least they now knew what probably caused the problem, and could get to work finding a solution. They wondered just how sensitive this was to them... but unfortunately the damage has already been done. If they had to guess, the strange alien scientists that were affected in the blast would now probably be entirely blind to this sense; they knew their energy signatures were massive. Still, they would not want to take any chances. They would still refrain from teleporting back to the tree until they knew for absolute certain that this was the only problem. After all, there could be another sense, somehow, that they might have also overwhelmed, except the nuwaigans - for some reason - only told them about the energy signature itself. Furthermore, the wording of the alien message implied that they had somez sort of order the senses come in - perhaps from most to least fundamental? Captain: "We need to suppress the energy signature of our contact team, effective immediately. Do not deploy them to LZ until I have given the order, understood?"
"Understood Captain! ... I wonder what it would be like to have this.. 6th sense..."
Captain, jokingly: "On our ships? You'd end up like them."
Both give a good chuckle
"But yeah, Captain? Have.. have we ever found any species with anything like this before?"
Captain: "According to the archivists at the HSA, no."
"Across the entire galaxy cluster? Of over 100 galaxies? Fascinating... I bet our xenobiologists would have a field day going over just this data alone." This news would spread very rapidly over wider HF society, as this could lead to advances in knowledge about xenobiology, and also due to the fact it was fascinating. They would send another transmission in response though, which whould translate roughtly into:
"Understood. Teach us your language." After recieving the recent hyperion transmission, the scientists immediately got to work, sending over various resources such as the alphabet, both written and audio of each of the sounds. They also sent audio of themselves saying full words and phrases, which were accompanied by their translations via code. They also called in language teachers to advise on how to do this… they said that even though these aliens were adults, since they didn’t know any of the language, they would have to start the same way that you teach a child. And so words were sent along with images of various objects, and many lessons that would normally be given to small children, slowly going up and up through various levels of education.
Normally, this process takes years of course, but they didn’t have time for that… the process would still be a lengthy one though, at least a week, if not two or even a whole month... However, a few, short days into the process, they were surprised to find they would receive their first voice transmission. T.S. Lepton of the Stars was hailing them, almost like they already knew how to fluently speak their language!! But they haven't even received all their lessons yet... Something weird is going on...
It will take a little under an hour to get up the tree once we have confirmation.” "We have a translation error. What are you sending up?" “People of the other sapient species here.” "There's... Two? How many are there?" “Only two here. Three if you count the whales. They are on another level of sapience above us though, as I’m sure you’ve already found out.” "I see... Are they the ones in space or are they on your world also?" “The whales are in space. The Mautitar are down here. They’re from the jungles.” "Fascinating...
Well, is there anything else you want to discuss? Should we meet you in the weird tree again whenever we receive confirmation?" “I am sure we will discuss much more after we are able to meet.“ "Agreed. Me and my contact team are anticipating this moment, contact us if you want anything. Lepton of the Stars, over and out." They would wait for about 1 hour while the mautitar delegation reach the top. They have already tested their energy signature suppression systems, but will use the time to check it further. Meanwhile, this transmission is recorded and transferred through the HF archive for millions to enjoy in the far future, when this event would become history. Right on time, the mautitar delegation arrived at the crown of the tree. They were completely silent, almost eerily so, but were gesturing to each other. Not just with their hands, but with their other limbs and it seemed even their tail, ears, and mandibles. There were 4 of them.
They also seemed to direct a gesture towards the Hyperion contact team that they could only assume was a greeting as they approached the group. A few of the Mautitar there seemed pretty distrusting and stayed further back, while others seemed much more curious and came a bit closer to look at the hyperionites. This was a bit disconcerting for some smaller hyperionites, as the Mautitar were quite large. Their main body was about the size of a lion’s, and their upper torso gave them quite a bit of added height. Now it was only a matter of time before the hyperionites would be able to check their energy signatures against the Mautitar, and let the nuwiagan contact team below know if they could come up, or not… The HF scientists show no acts of aggression. Unaware of what might be considered insulting in their culture, they opted to do absolutely nothing except the bare essentials, and to carry out their mission.
The HF scientists got out some devices and pointed them at some of the mutitar nearby. They then contacted the original nuwaigan scientists. "Hyperion science team to Mauwairi, come in." “Hello, we read you!” "Excellent, we have found that our own heat signatures aren't too far from those of the... big aliens. We estimate about 130W for those people and we know the largest of ours would be about 150W. Is this within safe margin?" "Yes, that should be safe." "Excellent! Unfortunately we can't talk to the big guys, we don't know their language. They don't seem to be talking... Maybe this is why you asked us if our translators could perform gestures?" “Yes, this is why. They cannot communicate verbally. They were already prepared for not being able to communicate with you at this time, don’t worry.” "We will want to be able to communicate with them eventually. Can you?" “Most of us can, yes. We cannot make many of the gestures but we learn what their gestures mean, just as they learn what our sounds mean even though they can’t make them.
We plan to interpret for them when we get up there… our contact team is currently on the way.” "So we should be able to talk to them using your language, correct?" “Yes, they just won’t be able to talk back without a Nuwaigan interpreter.” "I understand, and look forward to seeing you up here! Hyperion science team out." The hyperionite contact team would quickly notice they were located in a large, almost sealed off section within thet tree. In all directions around them, were a large number of branches. This was presumably to prevent people floating off into space. They also noticed a large circle on the floor about 30 meters away, which caught the curiosity of two of the hyperionites. Eventually, the area within the circle on the ground appeared to… dilate? What was a smooth, solid part of the tree, without so much as a slit to denote a door, was now a pretty wide hole. Out of the hole came, one by one, 7 Nuwaigans of various shapes, sizes, and colors in transparent suits. Upon arrival, the nuwaigans would see 8, large suits that are almost entirely opaque. They have a dark grey colouration with bright blue lines that emit light. They are all hovering near one of the larger branches. They appeared to have a lot of equipment with them. Furthermore, they vary significantly between each other. They can only guess that this would have something to do with the multispecies property their society prbably has. They also have some strange markings on them. Each suit had exactly one of these markings. The hyperionites were stunned to finally see them. Entire weeks of work have led up to this point with no small amount of effort on both sides. Furthermore, although they have seen this species many times through the drones scanner, they would appear very different in person. This moment was evidence that this effort has not been in vain. However, they were not close enough to see the transparent suits the nuwaigans were wearing. This has led them to the incorrect conclusion that they could survive in the vacuum, but that was quickly disproven when the nuwaigans got closer and they saw the suits. Upon being able to see them more up close, the suits appeared to have some kind of plant in them, mostly clustered around the back and neck, where the suit seemed to bulge out a bit to accommodate, but remained streamlined, but no air tanks as the hyperionites would recognize them… quite curious indeed.
What are the small plants on their backs? Perhaps they hold some cultural significance to them; after all, this tree can act as a space elevator for them. One major problem with primitive space travel was that the hardest part is invariably getting into orbit. 'When you left the atmosphere, you are already half way to the destination.' This would allow them to pack massive amounts of ∆v in their starships, which any other civilization would be highly jealous of. It would be entirely possible that they evolved here.
They were also not expecting the nuwaigans to appear so massive up close. The smallest individual of this species appeared to be around 4 meters in length, and the largest 6 meters.
They knew they couldn't talk through the vacuum of space so they instead opted to record these people and enjoy being the first in history to get a proper look at any nuwaigan. The Nuwaigans seemed equally excited to see the hyperionites, although due to their suits being opaque instead of clear, they couldn’t see them anywhere near as well. They had much the same idea as the hyperionites, to record the initial meeting. The hyperionites have already spotted a couple of creatures in the tree. Unbeknownst to them, these were purposed organisms that serve as cameras. They share much of their DNA with Skywatchers.
The contact team, using the branches and platform to maneuver, came even closer to the hyperionites. After a few moments of simply observing the hyperionites from their new, close up position, which the cameras were getting all of quite nicely… footage of this moment would certainly go down in history. The first face-to-face meeting. one of the Nuwaigan contact team members cheerfully reached out their hand towards the nearest hyperionite in a moment of great anticipation for both sides.
"One small gesture for us, one massive revelation for the stars..." Of course, the nuwaigans couldn't hear them, but nothing was stopping them from telling them afterwards. To the surprise of the person who had taken the nuwaigan’s hand, that was not a handshake! After a moment, the nuwaigan excitedly starts trying to lead the hyperionite towards the door the nuwaigans came out of. The sight is almost reminiscent of a child trying to show their parent something. The nuwaigan who dragged him away feels an immense force keeping the hyperionite in place before he lets go, figuring it would probably be best to let this person lead him to wherever they wanted. He never thought he would go down in history as the first person to be dragged along by aliens, but history was often unpredictable. The other nuwaigans also start going in the same direction, looking back at the other hyperionites periodically to make sure they were following. Someone else reacted to this and exclaimed: "Woah, yeah, there's our first sign. Let's follow them." Using a presumably similar propulsion method as their starships, they begin to fly around the 0g environment and taking everything in. "They'll presumably want us to take a similar ride down as they took up here." "Yeah, probably..." The mautitar delegation also begins to make their way towards the airlock. The hole in the floor leads to a whole room within the trunk. Most of them went through what seemed to be an airlock. One nuwaigan had to stay behind to allow the mautitar delegation inside the tree after the hyperionites and other nuwaigans. It wasnt comfortable for anyone in the airlock, but there was enough room for all 14 of them. Once everyone was inside, one of the Nuwaigans touched near the edge of the outer door with a tendril, and it closed. It began pressurizing. Once safe, the 2nd door opened and everyone saw a big room. It’s very organic looking, seemed to be hollowed out of the tree itself as opposed to built. There was still no gravity, but the room has many plants, some that look quite similar to the ones in the suits. The opposite wall has a very big glowing blue ring, like the ones that denoted the other doors. Someone asked the rhetorical question:
"Well... what do we have here?"
No one would ever know who asked that, but it was warranted; It was a view that none were expecting. There was also a ninth member of the contact team, but he wasnt present, instead, sitting on the Hyperion city-starship. His name was Mission Control. "Mission Control, be advised: they have led us to this.. biological airlock and this huge room inside.. my pressure sensor is saying we are now in atmosphere. Is it safe to depressurize?"
"Understood. Let me do some analysis here..."
"Affirmative, holding until you give confirmation."
The HF team came out of the airlock, looking around at their surroundings (and automatically recording in the process too). Yet again, they have yet to see anything similar. They would look back to the nuwaigans eventually for directions. However, Mission Control did his analysis faster than expected.
Mission Control: "Contact team Alpha, you are clear to depressurize. The conditions are correctable by your Cybernetic Enhancements." "Copy that, depressurizing." One by one, the visors protecting them from vacuum conditions opened, the air between the tree and suit atmospheres equalized, revealing a different species in every suit. They got their first chance to talk. "Hello?" The nuwaigans were taking off their own suits, but definitely not in a way the hyperionites were expecting. Once again, using their tendrils, they each touched their suits in a specific spot (this time, it seemed to be right where the collarbone would be on a human) and the suits appeared to melt off of them, and coalesce into an orb around the plants that were inside them. The leaves appear to stick out of these new “orbs” though. The nuwaigans proceed to put them into some small half-circle dents in the wall. At this point, the 4 mautitar members and final nuwaigan have also arrived. “Hello!!!” The HF contact team is clearly wierded out by the suits meting off the nuwaigans. They are at a loss for words for a moment. One alien, that appeared to have a mostly clear body, spoke up.
"Hello, now firstly, we dont know if you have recieved that message from that one rih'kiel, but we are very sorry for damaging the energy sense that your people have... I- we.. would like to help, but do not understand the physiology of your species very well. I uhh..." The nuwaigans start to become a bit more somber.
“Oh- oh…”
“Yes, we did get the message… the important thing is that you found out a way for it to not happen now, and that we can heal the contact team, even though it will take a while.”
“Well, except for two of them.”
“Yeah…”
all of them seem to go quiet. Some look at each other and some look down. After a moment of silence, a seemingly entirely inorganic being spoke.
"We do thank you for your trust in our kinda though, but there has to be a way. We just need to cooperate. We have some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy cluster, we will have something. We just need understanding. If you transmit everything you know about the biology of your kind, we will find a way to help them. We have done more harm to your civilization than good, this is our job to fix." “Oh, absolutely! And thank you… there will be much information to exchange, I’m sure… hold on, I’ll call the people communicating with your ship right now, see if I can get them to send the data over. I don’t know how different your communicators are from ours but either way I assume you’ll want to see…” "We will be fine. The federation is a very diverse group. Some of us are made entirely out of exotic matter that doesnt normally exist in nature."
Another one talks, this one visibly bioluminescent
"Like me?"
"Eeexactly. This man's body is comprised entirely out of magnetic monopoles!" “Interesting! In that case… Aivsi, could you get the doors while I call the team on the surface? Thanks.”
The smallest Nuwaigan, presumably Aivsi, opens the large door. As with the other nuwaigans, though, even the smallest one still appeared huge. This door was similar to the other doors they’ve seen so far.. but bigger. The room/airlock it opens up to is quite large, with a… creature? Inside. It was very large creature, with a flat body and five long, strong looking legs. It appeared to have a clear dome strapped/attached to its back. Within the dome, there seemed to be a total of 20 bluish translucent cubes, each bigger than a person. How odd… there was also a suspended walkway that seemed to be level with the creature’s back/the floor of the dome. Meanwhile, the nuwaigan who said they were gonna call the other team pulls out a small, hexagonal box from one of a few pouches on a band around their neck (previously obscured by the plants in the suit) They open it, and reach a tendril inside, tapping whatever is within. Out crawls a small, insectoid creature with long antennae. It sits on the Nuwaigan’s hand, and the nuwaigan brings it level with their face and says: “Hello, surface team, do you read me?”
The critter’s antennae light up as the Nuwaigan talks, and stays lit, flicking with the volume and tone of the speech, when it appears to say, in the voice the hyperion team recognized from the other communications, “Surface team here, yes we read you. What do you need?”
The nuwaigan goes on to explain the hyperionite’s desire to help and needing all the available information on Nuwaigan biology. One of the hyperionites shot up away from the massive creature the moment they noticed it.
"Nero, that.. thing isnt dangerous, come back." one of the other hyperionites left explain what has happened to the nuwaigans and mautitar:
"Sorry, Suons just have a deep - rooted natural reaction to megafauna to shoot it if armed or, if unarmed, retreat. Perhaps you are lucky in that we are unarmed." one of the other nuwaigans looks at the suon, curious in a kind of puzzled, concerned, and possibly suspicious way. The hyperionites get the feeling that if they could furrow their brow that’s probably what they would be doing. “Sorry, some of those words came across as a translation error. Would you repeat that please?” the nuwaigans start drifting toward the Crawler, while still paying attention to the suon. The suon in question eventually slows down and stops at a much higher altitude, looking down, having gathered some strength. "You.. probably wont like it. On the suon homeworld, which is named Tebburus, some lifeforms can grow to very large sizes. And, uh, many of them can eat... our people. So the suons themselves have developed a reaction to try to kill such large creatures." "It looks like Nero is gathering some courage though. Not that he has the ability to kill the Crawler in the first place as he doesnt have his rifle." He was absolutely right, the nuwaigan they were talking to did not like that at all. “Oh… that is quite unfortunate. We’ve got large predators too but we never—“ they’re cut off by one of the others “That sounds a whole lot like our leviathans!” The first nuwaigan, slightly annoyed, continues; “yes, they’re who I was talking about. We never developed a violent reaction though. I’m not a FastFin, they’re the closest to them, but from what I know they just try to avoid them and dissuade them from coming near the cities.” the second nuwaigan adds; “yeah, they’re not really a problem. They can eat us but they can usually be convinced not to. Plus, we’ve got the Leviathan Watch in each city to monitor them and make sure we don’t cross paths with them.” "Thankfully, in times of need such as this suons can apply rigid logic and overcome almost all of their fears. Now that we know that your world has megafauna which is safe, Nero is much less likely to.. try anything." "Is that our way down to the surface?" the nuwaigan with the little bug taps it after they finish their call and it goes back into the box and curls up. They close the box and put it back in their pocket. One of the others answers the question: “Yes, this is a Crawler. They’re purposed specifically for getting up and down the Tree quickly. Come, they won’t hurt you.” a few of the the nuwaigans go first, using the railings and the walkway to maneuver to the front of the dome and, despite it looking like hard glass and tapped the dome with a tendril which, once again, seemingly formed a door from nothing. They go inside and move to the back, before seemingly waiting for the others. The mautitar are some of the first to enter the Crawler. At least this event has answered a few of the hyperionites' questions, such as how they were receiving transmissions despite a clear lack of any technology. How would it be possible that these alien bugs have evolved these abilities? What advantages does it grant them? As with many questions in science, every question answered just bring several more. Eventually the 8 hyperion aliens get in the crawler. Nero was last due to the time it took to traverse the distance, but made it and seems more calm now. the last nuwaigan to enter the dome taps all of the gel cubes on their way towards the back. “Iiiiim gonna assume you guys don’t know how these work?” "Uhh.. are these cubes food for the Crawler? Are we supposed to.. get in?" “Yes, you get into the cubes. They’re relatively new for many of us too, but regular seats don’t really work for crawlers because anything that fits us Nuwaigans and also deals with the different gravities and being vertical doesn’t work for Mautitar and vice versa. Gel cubes fit everybody.” the Nuwaigan proceeds to move into the gel cube next to them, which seems to move out of their way and form around them. Much of their upper body (head, shoulders, neck, arms) isn’t quite inside (although there’s some gel behind them and in front of them like head and armrests), but the rest of their body seems encased in the gel. Once they’ve stopped moving, seemingly comfortable, the gel seems to settle and become much less pliant. The other Nuwaigans follow suit, although the hyperionites notice that many of them have taken different positions. One thing about the gel cubes is that they had many different options for ways to sit. Some of the hyperionites looked at each other. They have already seen a lot of wierd stuff on this planet, but this was something else entirely. They then, reluctantly, get into the gel cubes. This was a very odd thought for many, but were also curious as to how such a ride would feel. Apparently it would be time to find out. "You know.. we never had anything like this. Most races develop some sort of space elevator, but mechanical, kind of like your tree but its a giant cable that stretches into orbit... That technology has been largely obsoleted by our Teleporters though, so the ones we still have are mostly just kept for history. If you ask how teleporters work, though, we will be here all day and your brain would be hurting, so- well, not literally hurting, its a hard thing to understand is what im saying." Someone else comments: "I wonder what it will look like on the bottom.." Yet another comments: "I wonder what those leviathans would look like..." "Patience, patience, we will find out eventually. For now we enjoy the ride." Although it felt strange at first, they were reluctant to admit that it became very comfortable after a few moments. One of the aliens, an Ukztlakat, had a lot of trouble finding a position that worked, but eventually found one. The next thing the hyperionites said seemed to get a similar reaction out of the nuwaigans; interest and puzzlement. “There were a few translation errors there… we got most of it, including teleporters, but the word after you said space elevator and the word after you said orbit… could you try to explain?” as they’re talking, one of the other nuwaigans must have done something because the door(?) they had come in through has just sealed and the crawler began to move. the crawler moves out of the doors, lingering just past the edge for a second, before starting the descent. It seems to have no problem running on a completely vertical surface. It starts out a bit slow but speeds up significantly once it gets going… there would probably be some pretty intense g-forces under normal conditions but the gel seems to almost completely mitigate that. "Inorganic space elevators basically. A large space station that- oh, a large building in space that orbits the planet- is, well, connected to the surface by a large structure, a very long and thin pole often of some metal.. I should show you. I have no idea what this tree is made of, but according to all known laws of biology it should be torn apart by the massive forces involved in..." The outer doors opened, treating the hyperionites, nuwaigans and mautitar to a most spectacular view; the surface, while still far away, was clearly vibrant and lush. Vivid blues and greens as far as the eye could see. And since they were at the very top of the atmosphere, they could also see the stars, and the purple gas giant Mauwairi orbits in the distance, beginning to rise over the horizon. "Woah, Epsilon, Nero, look at that..." "Wow, look at that...." Eventually, Nero the suon would apologize to the nuwaigans "Look. heard you talking about Tebburan magafanua earlier. I'm sorry for that - the conditions are just, well, different from most worlds. We had to evolve that reaction, it was entirely warranted because most life there are a bit more... hostile." the Nuwaigans Nero was talking to seemed quite concerned, but they were just as distracted by the view as the Hyperionites were. No matter how many times they saw it, the view would still be incredible. Nero: "Don't worry though, we are guided by the stars themselves, so we should be fine." "Uhh Nero? They'll have no idea." "Oh right. You see there is this... Structure on Tebburus that we just call 'the stars'." He is again distracted by the view. “Oh! Curious…” there are a few moments of quiet as they all look at the view. "This thing is technically known as the Pyre of Stars, and it is what engineered my species. It is-" he is distracted by the view again. now THIS seems to attract the attention of almost all the Nuwaigans. “You are a purposed organism?” "Yes, we have a purpose. Rumour has it that we were made to roam the stars and save other sentient species from doom. Buuut the Pyre can be quite.... abstract at times. It can often be difficult to understand it..." "A few of our species were engineered actually." “How interesting!! We of course have many engineered species of our own like the crawler and the spacesuits, but we’ve never heard of sapient purposed organisms!” "Fascinating." Nero pauses to let that sink in for a moment. "What else have you made like this?" the Nuwaigans look at each other “Well, many things of course. Communicators, the skywatchers, cameras, computers, certain buildings… the list goes on.” “Some things, like the cameras, are completely engineered and others, like the Communicators, TreeClaw cities, and Gel, already existed, but we modified them to serve a purpose better.” This, like many things on this world, was a very strange thought for the hyperionites. Before coming here, they likely would never have believed if told about a planet even remotely like this. They look at each other, not speaking a word, but it would be apparent that the same thing was on all of their minds: 'They are a lot more advanced than we thought' .... Eventually, one of them does talk "Well. I very much look forward to seeing all the other... Weird things you have." “Same!!” “Oh, and speaking of… I wanted to ask earlier but got distracted. You said that other people built ways to space with… metal? I am curious about the details of that.” There’s some nods of agreement from the other nuwaigans, they were curious too. "I'll get an Archive article about space elevators for you, one moment..." The person in question gets out a device and begins typing on it before handing it to the person next to him, eventually reaching a nuwaigan. Someone set the language to Mauwirian. "Unfortunately our teleporters are a classified page so I can't really show you that..." “That’s alright” A few minutes pass as the Nuwaigan reads the article. They seem very intrigued “This is all very interesting, for sure, but it still does not answer the question of how they managed to make anything out of metal.” "Most primitive races refine metal using some large and extremely hot structures called blast furnaces which can reach temperatures of several hundred degrees. This process tends to be very bad for the environment though, so they eventually develop more advanced techniques. Sometimes metals can combine in a class of materials called alloys. One example being bronze which is a mix of tin and copper." "I am already beginning to see the advantages of your 'technolgical' development. No pollutants to destroy your own planet, no extremely complex logistical networks... It would seem that, honestly, we have completely underestimated your world. We put you down as a hunter-gatherer society because we saw none of those things, which I realise might be quite insulting, so I'll contact them with our new information... This might even turn all of our ideas of xenobiology upside down entirely. Those huge space whales - are they your equivalent of starships?" “Yeah, the closest things we have to the.. 'blast furnaces' are sunforges, for glassmaking. They have a series of lenses that focus light onto the container with the sand, which melts it. We did not know you even could process metal.” “Don’t worry, we don’t take offense from that. Nothing shameful about hunting and gathering. Many still do, my family and many Mautitar tribes included. Sometimes the local stores and your neighbors just don’t have what you want. Plus, it can be fun!” There’s some quiet concerned murmurs along the lines of; “other species destroy their own planets?” “The whales are their own thing. They predate our species by millions of years. We hope to form a partnership with them so that they can be starships, and maybe create smaller purposed ships from their material. But communication has proved… difficult… their hypersapience makes it impossible to safely communicate with them directly through Laut’himau. I mean, you met the Everseeker…” they kind of trail off… the topic of the Everseeker seems to make them uneasy “We know their intentions are good though. They want to work with us as much as we do. So we’re currently working on creating a filter to make things safer for us.” “Also more understandable.” “Yeah.” "Well... You are on the verge of becoming a space faring race?" "That's.. huge. Congratulations, for when you get there..." "Are you a type I civilization? Can you harness all the energy that reaches your planet?" "Who is this Everseeker you speak of? Is it... Is it the whale that rih'kiel talked to? What's... wrong with it?" Some of them remember one detail that the rih'kiel mentioned. It said it was both whale and nuwaigan species. Something went horribly wrong here - or perhaps horribly right. “I wouldn’t say we can harvest all the energy but more than enough, for sure” “And yeah, the Everseeker is who the telepath was talking to. They aren’t a whale… exactly. There is a story there, although whether you think there’s anything wrong with them and what happened completely depends on your point of view” the hyperionites then look at each other, but one got another view. "Wait, I think we are close to the ground now..." Apparently, time flew for them as they had (and still have) so much to talk about. "Oh hey. Could you explain the story?" “It was years ago, but the story goes that the Everseeker was once a scientist named Stargazer, who had wanted nothing more than to explore space, and to contact the whales. Their ambition lead them to become one of the leading experts on space and the whales, so when a whale finally came to the tree— oh, for context, the whales only come around every few decades as part of their natural migration, and usually don’t come close enough for us to be able to make contact, that’s more like a twice in a century thing— stargazer was one of the selected researchers to gather data and see if they could speak with them. The moment they had been waiting for for years had finally come— but then, after they collected more data, they were able to simulate what would happen if they tried to talk to the whales… and it would be disastrous. Their hypersapience would surely kill or permanently damage the brain of the person trying to talk to them. Why exactly stargazer did what they did next isn’t fully known, they’ve never given a straight answer. The most popular theory though is that they were desperate and knew if they didn’t try now they’d be long gone before they next had a chance, despite the risks. That they were so ambitious that this was the only way they felt they could achieve their dreams. So, against all the warnings of their peers, they tried to contact one of the whales, one they knew who had the same hunger to learn and explore as them. And the simulations turned out exactly right… it was too much for them. They would have died right then if the whale hadn’t saved them by… well, fusing with them. Using its own body to keep stargazer alive and its own mind as a support, pulling them into the singular conscious the reef shares. There’s no way to separate them without killing them… they’re bound to the whale for better or worse. Some people think that stargazer lost their mind. They think they’ve reached a higher plane of consciousness. Their family mourned, of course, as the person they knew was gone. But the Everseeker? They were, and are, delighted. They have access to all the knowledge the whales have gathered, and the ability to explore the stars, just like they always wanted. I don’t think they ever thought they’d reach it like this though… Despite not remembering their own name or, at least as far as we can tell, their friends or family, they do still help us and the other scientists out. Mostly it’s just the occasional sending info back from their travels but this time, they brought us you.” They were all stunned. If anyone else told them that, they wouldnt have believed them. "Errr...how did they fuse exactly....?" "That's.. unethical?" "Well, at least he can advance all of our knowledge..." It would seem that almost all of them would have different comments... “That’s… what we meant by whether what happened was a good thing or not is very much dependent on your point of view… but either way, no one is really at fault other than themself. They chose to try to contact the whale, despite the risk.” “And how exactly the fusion happened, we’re not quite sure, since they and the whale were the only ones there. We just know that it kind of partially… absorbed them? It’s a bit difficult to explain. Here, we have an image; it’s not a great image but it’s the only one they let us get… it’s rare they let anybody into the chamber where their body is, they usually just communicate with the equipment they brought with them. How the equipment managed to get there in the first place, we don’t know.” "That..." "Wait, is that his original body there? The 4 eyes? the.. veins that look like nuwaigan wings?" The nuwaigan showing him that picture gives a light nod. They felt the discomfort of this alien, and thus decided to talk. "Yeah, that’s what I thought— that’s why there’s such a controversy around it. They seem content with their situation, but…" "I can see why he would want his privacy." ... "Well. If its the hyperintelligent whales you want to talk to, I believe we have the tools for that. Already. We talk to hyperintelligent beings - both organic and inorganic - quite often. Now all we need is to find a way for our starship onboard AI to find a way to open a line to the whales." the Nuwaigans seem delighted “Really?? You can talk to them safely already? That’s incredible! You guys will definitely have to help us finish our filter… we’re like 70% there but having a couple of issues… I don’t know the issues in detail cause I’m not working on it, I don’t think anybody on this team is, but some of my other friends are” "You mention you have a way to talk to them already? except that way is dangerous? We only need to nkow how you did that. We can contact one of the whales with T.S. Lepton of the Stars' data center and send QEC transmissions back to us." “Yes, Laut’himau. It’s directly tied to the sense that you accidentally damaged in the first team. You see, aside from being able to sense Laut’hi— er, bioelectricity, we can also make small pulses. Nothing super powerful, around the same level as the pulses that govern the natural functions of all living beings we’ve encountered. For animals, it’s the pulses between neurons and along nerves. Plants and fungi have a different system but it still uses bioelectricity. So, with practice, we can mimic these pulses to create different effects. For simpler things like gel and plants, it’s not exactly communication, but we can get them to take certain shapes or grow certain ways. For more complex things, like most animals and some fungi, such as the whales, we can use the pulses to trigger certain emotions or concepts. Pull thoughts to mind by essentially making their mind produce that thought, if that makes sense. It requires quite a bit of training and some familiarity with how that particular organism’s nervous system works, but oddly the whales are actually really similar to the fungi we have on the surface, just far more intricate.” "Oh... so unless you want to be hooked up to our starship, I dont think that's gonna work." Epsilon: "Im sure they would be willing to help you with those... filter things thou- WAIT!" "Epsilon? What is it?" Epsilon: "That... that sounds strikingly similar to a Shockworm." "We... you are kidding, right? Shockworms induce voltages way too high for th-" "Not when you're careful!" "..." One of them turns around to the nuwaigans "So a shockworm is basically an engineered symbiote that can create massive electrical charges using small appendages that it grows on the host. They are powerful enough to power our equipment for surprisingly long, but I think he is suggesting to teach some shockworm hosts how to use Laut'himau... I dont think it would work, but.. I dunno, maybe..." "Theres no way your gonna get the precision needed.." “I… don’t know if that would work, but we could try? It’s quite interesting that you have a non-sapient creature that uses bioelectricity like that though.” "None of us are shockworm hosts but im sure there will be several willing to try on our worldship.... if they dont just blow the test organisms apart with every single attempt..." "Actually, you know what, it is probably best to just help with the filter things instead. We can't complete it for you, but we can leave clues. Im sure that should be of much help." It seems that during this time they forgot to ask a quite important question. "Oh wait, what are your names?" The one who’s been talking the most responds. They are a very angular Nuwaigan with bluish black and white speckled dots that almost seem like pibaldism. In addition, they have several markings trimmed with a gold-like material and large, blue eyes:
“I’m Hiko, this—" they gesture at the large, serious one who reminds you of a storm in colors. "— is Oro." Oro nods in the hyperionite’s direction.
"The one sitting in the front there is Ahiit." The -hiit is pronounced as a whistling sound. Ahiit, who is rather lanky in appearance and seems to lack the big fin-wings, waves. They almost look like a shoreline, with a sandy underbelly that fades to a pale green and then darker teal on their back, with white markings throughout, waves.
"The one across the way from me is T’wani." T’wani looks very aerodynamic and sleek, moreso than the others. Their pelvic fins and finwingspan are huge, and they’re even more lightly built than Ahiit.
"The little one over there is Aivsi." Aivsi waves excitedly. They’re very high-energy, and yes, smaller than the others, albeit a bit chubby. Around the size of an average human it seems, but twice as long due to their tail. Their colors constantly shift.
"The one way in the back there is Lorelai." most of the Hyperionites can’t see Lorelai pretty well but they can see that they seem to be glowing, casting a soft golden-whitish light onto everything around them. The closest Hyperionite can see that they have a very elaborate fin/crest around their head and neck, and a particularly intricate tail fin. Lorelai says “Hello!!”
Hiko picks up again, “And lastly, we have Owok’t!” Owok’t also is missing the fin-wings, but they also seem to have long fingers where the others had shorter digits on those limbs. They’re a mossy green color. They wave at the hyperionites with one of their larger limbs, contrasting with all the other nuwaigans who were probably incapable of doing that - and therefore used their smaller arms. "Oooohhh, how interesting! It's great to get to meet you all. You are a very diverse bunch."
It was at this moment that the hyperionites also decided to introduce themselves. Nero, who has a purple skin and bight blue bioluminescent patches, and who has been talking the most this whole time, talks first: "I am Nero! My species are called suons, and I effectively lead this team." (WIP)
"Are you the same species? You are all sort of similar, but like, vary way too much to be the same species... one of you - Lorelai i think - seems to be bioluminescent.. I uhh..."
But before he could finish, someone else begins.
"What are those patterns on your arms? Did you paint those? Are they just a part of your biology somehow?"
Someone asks, referring to some strange tattoos that appeared on the nuwaigans' left arms.
In the meantime, one of the other hyperionites are trying to pronounce Ahiit's name (with not much success) but seems to be having fun doing it.
Ahiit seems to find the pronunciation failure pretty funny, but not as funny as Aivsi finds it.
Hiko explains: “We’re all Nuwaigans, but we’re all different Lineages. Subspecies, essentially. The only lineage we don’t have represented here are the DeepDwellers, since they’re from the abyss.”
Owok’t adds; “Honestly the pressure thing isn’t much of an issue anymore cause we have suits for them, and they’d do fine in zero gravity, they’re just too bit to fit in the crawler, at least not with other people.” they make a noise that is probably a laugh. Hiko again: “Yeah, not to mention they have difficulty on land. Anyway, the marks on our arms are called Kau’ora marks. Yes, they’re painted on. The symbols each mean something, and together they tell a story about the life of the person who has it. Like, this symbol here is my graduation from school, and this one is when my city had a really close run-in with a leviathan, and this contact will definitely warrant a faceted star symbol, which is an achievement/event of the highest level. It is a great honor.” "Woah, that's interesting... How big are these 'DeepDwellers'? If they can barely even fit in this crawler..." Of course, Nero the suon had to ask about the leviathan: "Wait, a leviathan nearly destroyed one of your cities? How did you survive? How many died?" This catches the attention of most of the hyperionites. They would all be concerned for Hiko and their family. Oro answers the first question: “Twice as big as me, sometimes three times as big” Hiko responds to Nero; “Oh, nobody died. Couple people were injured though, and quite a few more were seriously rattled. It wasn’t a full-on attack, we just drifted too close to a parent and its offspring, and of course they’re very protective of their children, so it tried to make us leave by aggressively posturing and roaring and hissing and we can’t turn the city fast enough for it so it did end up taking a couple of houses out on the rim, only one of which had people in it. They were mostly fine though, aside from being scared out of their minds and some minor scratches and bruises from the debris. The Leviathan Watch was able to get it out of there before it did any more damage though. The most effective, albeit not any less dangerous, method for dealing with this particular situation is for somebody to get close enough to touch it so they can tell it that we mean no harm, aren’t a threat, and calm it down and get it to take a different path. That’s what we did this time. most of the watch distracted it while one of them, dubbed the Speaker, was able to get close enough and talk to it, and then it left.
I’m not on the watch but I was helping the first-aid people who were dealing with injuries out, so I was close enough to be able to see it really well.”
“Everybody in the city ended up getting one of these marks from that day”
“We usually try to avoid crossing paths with Leviathans, that’s why the Watch, in every city, keeps track of them, but this one didn’t have a tracker on it yet. The watch fixed that though, managed to get one on the calf while the parent was distracted too.” "Oooh, im glad to hear that nobody was killed... interesting that it listened to you like that. How did you track it? Did you put some creature on it (You call those 'purposed lifeforms' i think)?" “Yes, we use a purposed organism.” "Wait. I think somethings happening, I feel a bit heavier..." "Are we slowing down now?" "You did mention that we were getting quite close to the surface..." “Oh, we’re here!” The crawler riders can see out the dome that they seem to be in a clearing in a jungle at a relatively high, altitude. The entire area, as far as the eye can see, is shaded from the massive World Tree, although it’s not exactly dark. Many plants and fungi here are bioluminescent. There are a few other crawlers, seemingly sleeping, tucked into hollows as the base of the tree. The clearing the crawler ends up coming off of the tree and into has many people, Nuwaigan and Mautitar, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It seems they’ve come to greet them. The crawler slows to a stop and kneels on the ground. Ahiit, being the closest to the front, is the first one to exit the gel and open the 'door'. They step out, to a lot of cheering from the people gathered. They then motion for the hyperionites to come out next.
Bigos: "We were never supposed to be famous, we just happened to be the 8 who were tasked with contact..."
Zan: "Come on Bigos, I know we aren't Pioneers, but they had none available... we should be fine though."
Nero: "We already breached protocol, Agasi."
Agasi: "What are we gonna do then? Teleport back up to the Lepton in front of untold millions?"
...
With that in mind, the rest of the hyperionites make attempts to get out of the gel. Only a few are successful, but those that werent recieved help from the other hyperionites, who appeared to be incredibly strong with these suits. Someone calls for the attention of one of the nuwaigans, as if he is talking to them: "Oh, nuwaigan, would they want to see us in our suits? Or would they want us to take them off?"
Oddly, he was talking as if it would be posible to take the suits off. They almost seemed as if they were part of his body at this point...
Ahiit: “Up to you really! People just really wanna be at this historic event, be able to see you guys in person. I will admit that I’m rather curious, but whatever’s most comfortable for you.”
Oro: “wait, what’s this about a breach in protocol?” "Hmm.." The one that asked the question turns around to the other hyperionites still in the crawler, while another one answers Oro's question:
Zan: "According to Hyperion first contact protocol, first contact absolutely must be performed by Pioneers at all cost. Pioneers are individuals specially trained for these kinds of events and are extremely skilled. The federation puts so much work into making all of their first contacts work because, well, it is EXTREMELY important to get right, and you get no 2nd chance. A single mistake can stain relations for years to come, and.. actually, this is freaking me out so ask me later..."
Anasyth: "Alright, take off your power armour. I think they want to see us, and dont forget, this is history, so bring your best behavior."
The various hyperionites behind responded with some variation of "Yes, Anasith!", exact wording varying between individuals. Once again, the textures of their armour have changed. Large slits have soon formed on the rear in several locations of their armour, eventually allowing it to open up rearwards. Everyone stepped out of their armour one by one, revealing a member of a different species every time. "Alpha to Mission Control, could you teleport our armour back to the Lepton?"
"Affirmative Alpha, I read you. Teleporting your armour back into the ship. Should we melt them back down into matter plasma?"
"Yes, Mission Control. Over."
Shortly after, a number of bright blue flashes appeared once again. The shining suits of armour of the contact team have vanished, leaving just the team itself.
"Right. Who's ready?"
"Born ready, Anasith." the Nuwaigans still in the crawler seemed very interested in the process with the suits. T’wani seems like they’re about to ask a question but Lorelai stops them with a tap on the shoulder and “There will be time for questions later, we don’t want to keep everybody waiting..”
it seems like they want the hyperionites to leave the crawler next. The last of the nuwaigans would follow. Shortly after, the hyperionites step out of the crawler one by one, to bravely meet the crowd. At least they would go down in history as discovers rather than cowards.
One of them, Kilatak, has a bit more trouble. This alien (of the Ukztlakat species) seems to move primarily by tentacles, but managed to find a tree branch to grab onto as he left the crawler.
Owok’t notices the struggles of Kilatak.
Owok't: “Ah, yeah… I’m more used to trees too. Do you need some help?”
Kilatak: "I.. oh, I found something to grab, I should be good now.."
He manages to swing out, following the other hyperionites, just at a higher altitude as he continues on his way as he finds more branches.
Owok’t nods; “That’s good.” One of the others asks if they have some way to speak to the crowd without having to yell extemely loudly.
Oro: “Yeah I can quiet them, one moment-“
Oro lets out a low, throbbing humming sound. It’s not particularly loud but it’s the kind of vibration you feel in your bones as well as just hearing it. The crowd quiets down almost instantly
Oro: “Ok, try now!”
"You have nothing that can amplify my voice so they can all hear?"
"Hmm..."
“They should all be able to hear you. Not at this volume, but projecting a bit without shouting should work.”
Nuwaigans have excellent hearing in comparison to most species.
“We could also use the communicators to amplify your voice if you prefer.”
Nero: "You reckon so? I'll give it a try..."
Nero's bioluminescence is noticeably brighter than it was on the crawler. He turns towards the crowd.
Nero: "Hello nuwaigans and mautitar!
We are a contact team sent by the Hyperion Federation!
Our goals here are to cooperate with and learn about your kind!
And we.. uuhh.. are a multi species federation from several galaxies quite far away!"
It would be relatively clear they have not been prepared or trained for such a moment.
The air of excitement had a bit more confusion in it now — but the crowd seems pretty supportive anyway. Most of them seem to be more interested in just seeing the strange newcomers. Nero turns back to the nuwaigans near him.
"Are they confused? What do they want to know?"
“I think they just picked up on your uncertainty and were confused about that.”
"I mean - we aren't uncertain, just unprepared. Very well though." One of the other aliens tries speaking to the crowd.
"We are a federation that occupies 4 galaxies about 10 mega lightyears away on average!
We have unified under a single banner with the goals of mutual scientific advancement and defence!
And.. oh, we have a lot of different species on our city-starship that's in the high stellar orbit!
It's technically called a Worldship though, and is named T.S. Lepton of the Stars!"
there’s quite a bit of murmuring upon the second comment. The crowd appeared to be extremely impressed by the notion they occupy 4 galaxies. Another hyperionite talks to Oro:
"Nuwaigans must have some very good hearing for this to-"
He just noticed the massive ears on the top of Oro's head and looked around at some other nuwaigans - they all have similarly massive ears.
"- And I think I just found out why..."
Oro blinks, and flicks one of their ears “Your hearing is less than ours? Interesting… I’ll have to make a note of that." Yet another alien speaks up, directed to the crowd:
"[Do you have] Any questions!?"
A huge clamor starts in the audience. None of the individual questions could be made out. The crowd does not appear angry, mostly just very curious and eager to learn.
Oro let out another throbbing hum, and people quiet down pretty fast, although there’s some little flickers of confusion and annoyance. Hiko speaks up; “Woah!! Woah, ok, clearly, there’s a lot of questions… how about we write them down and we can try to answer all of them later? Anybody have a tablet accessible right now?”
A hand with a vaguely tabletish looking thing shoots up in the crowd
“Ok! Ok good, could open up a notes thing and pass that around please? Thanks, we’ll get that back to you.”
This seems to satisfy most of the annoyed persons. The hyperionites turn to each other once more.
Zan: "Uhh, Caistori, I thiink we shouldn't ask for questions again.."
Caistori: "Seems like they have that sorted honestly. Do you think we should split those questions between.. like a few thousand individuals?"
Zan :"Maybe not actually, we could just send them some of our Archive articles for them to research and... well... do whatever they want to do."
The hyperionites are not quite sure what to do next. Epsilon, who seems to be entirely mechanical, says some words to the crowd
"Yes, we occupy 4 galaxies. It used to be 6, but 2 were destroyed, regrettably. And yes, T.S. Lepton of the Stars is pretty much a flying city. It has a population of several million. Its a long story, but we might just send your planet a transmission about our history. There were far too many questions for the 8 of us to realistically answer. Also, the chance that the same question was asked many times is extremely high."
The notion that 2 galaxies have been destroyed terrified the crowd for obvious reasons.
Anasyth: "Epsilon? You probably shouldn't have mentioned the hyperqu-..."
He stops himself from mentioning the event.
Epsilon: "Understood."
Anasyth then proceeds to pat the robot on the back before moving elsewhere on the stage. This awkward exchange would continue for about 30 minutes. During this time, many questions on the tablet were answered, however, not all. As Epsilon mentioned, the hyperionites simply didnt have the resources to answer them all. Some people have noticed that they never answered many questions about the 2 galaxies that were destroyed...
(Kenarus, Anadeia)
The crowd is gone, but the contact teams of both the HF and nuwaigans are still near the base of the world tree.
Zan: "I wonder what it feels like to, well, be influenced by Laut'himau."
Bigos: "What do you mean?"
Zan: "Well, they did mention that they have these... tendril things that they can use to interact with other beings."
Bigos: "Oh, that... yeah, that's quite curious..."
The one alien that had this idea turns to one of the nearby nuwaigans, which happens to be Lorelai this time.
Zan: "What do you think? Is it a good idea? For science?"
Lorelai: “Well... I could try. I’m not completely familiar with your species’ Laut’hi patterns but they don’t seem to dissimilar to some others I’ve worked with.”
Zan: "Then can you learn them by.. studying them? reading them? Can we tell you about my biology or..?"
Lorelai: “Study, yes. We have special maps that we make and use specifically for this called Laut'hi maps but I don’t expect you’d have them.
A detailed diagram of the nervous system or equivalent would probably work. They brought me along because I tend to pick up new patterns much faster than many.”
Zan: "Yes, im sure we can provide this easy.."
He looks at the other hyperionites nearby.
"For science?"
"For science!" The alien in question gets out a strange device that he uses for a moment before projecting an image nearby, a map of the nervous system of the species of this person. Miraculously, it is a 3D image.
"If you need it, we can study ourselves all the way down to the atomic level, so I can display an extremely accurate map of all quanta of my nervous system. But I doubt that will be of use."
Lorelai is excited by this diagram.
“This is actually almost perfect! And, lucky for you, I don’t need to actually do a complete study since I don’t need to be prepared for every contingency.”
they proceed to start looking at and investigating the image, going very in depth. Mostly looking at which parts of the brain is responsible for what and what different emotions look like. Approximately 15 minutes later:
Lorelai makes her way back towards the hyperionites.
Lorelai: “Alright, I think I’ve got enough for a message.”
Ahiit: “damn, they weren’t kidding about you being fast—“
Lorelai walks over to Zan:
“Are you ready?”
Zan: "Of course I am, of course, my fellow scientists will be studying this and its effects on me for years to come, the scientific opportunity alone is awesome!"
Zan gets down on one knee in a highly stable position, ready for Lorelai's influence.
The other scientists are ready to monitor Zan's bioelectricity using several different pieces of equipment.
5 of Lorelai’s tendrils extend from their shoulders and sides, reaching towards Zan and gently coming to rest in a few strategic places. There is one touching each temple, one on the center of his forehead, one at the base of his skull (where the neck and head meet), and one on the top of his head. Lorelai closes their eyes, and the tips of their tendrils glow brighter.
Zan feels a slight tingly feeling where Lorelai’s tendrils are, and then;
Greetings, new friend from the stars. We welcome you.
it felt almost like his own thoughts, but not ones he had thought up. More like when a thought comes out of nowhere. The scientists almost don’t see anything happening, they look like normal thought patterns, other than the fact that they can see surgically precise, subtle electric pulses traveling from Lorelai’s tendrils to different parts of Zan’s brain. The pulses themselves are almost exactly like the ones already zipping around Zan’s neural pathways.
The scientists monitoring then see another series of tiny pulses, instantly followed by the centers and hormonal glands responsible for various positive emotions seeming to have a sudden spike in activity.
Zan, almost immediately after the thought-message, feels a wave of warmth. Not literal warmth, but a warm feeling. He feels safe and welcomed, and there’s also some undertones of curiosity and excitement, as well as some other things he can’t quite pin down. It’s a complex feeling but overall a very pleasant one. Zan is also surprised by all this. He says out loud: "What? How did you-!?"
The answer was very obvious to all parties involved, but this phenomenon appeared like magic to the hyperionites. Zan could barely hold back his disbelief.
"That's.. crazy.. it's like I... It feels great. I feel.. like.. im safe here, I think."
Zan then tries to send a message to Lorelai.
Can you hear this?
Lorelai says, out loud; “I feel there is a question but I can’t feel exactly what it is. I would be able to understand and answer if I fully studied your patterns and nervous system, but I only looked into it enough to deliver that one message, otherwise we’d be here for quite a few cycles, maybe even a season.”
They make a noise that is most likely a chuckle.
Zan: "I see, interesting..."
Shortly after, the alien begins softly laughing from the calm emotions.
"This... hehehe... is incredibly calming.
Zan eventually thought to send the same message back to Lorelai, to see if they could recognize it. Zan also made sure to time it slightly differently in case Lorelai thinks he is just receiving his projection back.
Greetings, new friend from the stars. We welcome you.
Lorelai can also feel the faint energy signature of Zan's Cybernetic Enhancements which keep the person safe from the alien Mauwirian atmosphere. However, this is very easily distinguishable from Zan's natural impulses. This was observed as a high frequency pattern that repeated extremely rapidly and consistently. Almost like it changes direction through the circuitry at extremely short intervals.
Welcome friend.
“Yes, that I [translation error], er, hear. Understand.”
“What’s this other energy signature that you seem to have? I assume it’s some of your… technology, since it feels like it’s been muffled or suppressed, and seems to be unnaturally consistent in its pattern.”
"Intersting, I see..."
"Theres.. another signature?-
Ooh, yes, that would be my implants."
The 2 then linger there for a moment before Lorelai retracts their tendrils, although the feeling from before still lingers
“Implants?” Zan was quite disappointed now that the tendrils were retracted. This warm emotion would stay for a long time though. He would remain in this position in hopes that it would happen again.
"Yes, we basically had to incorporate technology into our bodies to be able to survive in alien environments. Without them, we would likely die in these conditions. We breathe a different chemical makeup than this world's atmosphere."
Lorelai: "Ah that makess sense."
Nero eventually interrupted "I would be curious to see what you think of my species nervous system. Im sure it will be quite unlike anything you have seen..."
Kilatak: "Laut'himau might not work on Suons though."
Lorelai: "Why not?"
Nero gives a nod to the question and projects a different 3D image, presumably of the suon nervous system. Several things become almost immediately apparent (in chronological order):
1 - it is extremely simple compared to any other known sapient race, with far fewer 'wires', which should be impossible with the extremely complex role it serves.
2 - it is far too well - organized to be any average biological being. It was still chaotic, but at the same time far too organized to have formed through any natural process. There would be no reason for this.
3 - the more Lorelai looks at it, the more confusing it becomes, despite its organized nature.
4 - In defiance of all known laws of electricity, no path seems to have any way for electricity to return to its origin point.
5 - the whole brain connection is almost completely nonsensical.
After a few moments of looking, some more conclusions come:
6 - a huge number of brain connections seem entirely redundant.
7 - For all Lorelai knows, this might not even be made of a material that is conductive.
8 - There is an entire section of the brain that is extremely complex - but entirely isolated from the rest of the nervous system.
9 - This section has the most redundant connections of any part. Lorelai is extremely confused. It would appear that the mysteries of the hyperionites would still be comming hard and strong even well after communications have been established.
Lorelai’s immense confusion is obvious.
“This is… I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what to do with this. Or where to even start…”
Hiko: “What? Really? Lemme see!”
they come bounding over, take one very intense look at the projection, and then
“What the [translation error]” Nero: "Perhaps we should give you a helping hand...
Our nervous systems are not based on the principles of electricity but on light. Instructions are transmitted from the brain not as electricity but as individual photons. The advantage of this is a very rapid reaction time and different frequencies can be used for different muscles, hence the smaller number of larger 'cables'."
Lorelai: “Oh! Curious… curious indeed.”
“It does make a little bit more sense with that information… hm. We’d have to make some sort of filter or translator thing to change our Laut’hi pulses to light pulses if we would want to be able go connect… hmm.”
Nero: "Possibly, yes. Oh, and you probably don't want to try to interfere with that isolated section of the brain. That stores my equivalent of the DNA. You see, we are not comprised of a large number of 'cells'. The entire suon body is one single large cell."
“Oh! Yes, that we are quite familiar with. Never see a single-celled organism as big as you though. Our biggest is probably around half your size, and much more… sedentary. Not as complex and certainly not sapient.”
"That seems to be fairly common for worlds with natural life. You see, the Pyre probably made us this way to be more easy and versatile to biologically modify. During our history, we have performed a not insignificant amount of genetic engineering on ourselves, giving rise to several different rare, but existant, 'special genes'. I have one actually, the water gene, which allows me to breathe underwater and swim to incredible depth. If I had to guess, I probably still wouldn't swim as well as your kind, but still probably quite well."
“It is quite interesting, how there are many paths toward making one more malleable to genetic engineering. The response our species took to it so easily is through the Laut’himau. Not directly since you can’t exactly edit dna with just electricity, but it led us to be able to make and use other tools for that quite effectively.”
Hiko cuts in: "Oh, speaking of swimming… how well can the rest of you swim?" Epsilon: "Hyperion Sentient Robots are all designed to be submersible, but I am too heavy to swim. I would be capable of walking on the ocean floor even to massive depths though."
Kilatak looks at his tentacles before speaking shortly after: "I would.. immediately drown"
Bigos: "Fairly well. I can withstand the cold quite well, but other than that..."
Anasyth: "I cant swim that well, but I can do it!"
Caistori: "I'm alright..."
Zan: "My species was practically designed for water and land, so I would be able to do it very well, yes"
Agyasi: "I cannot swim because my wings would be damaged, but I can fly..." Hiko: “Alright, good to know. We’ll try to keep you above water for now then, assuming you guys want to stay a little longer to eat and generally see more of the planet?”
Anasith: "We are here on a mission, but I guess we can see what a day in the life of a nuwaigan is like..."
The HF contact all look at each other seemingly in agreement.
Caistori: "Yeah, this planet sounds interesting, I would be down..."
Kilatak: "Yeah sure!"
When they got to the coast, they switched to something that looked more like a sea turtle, but only vaguely. This ride was a bit more slow paced, as well as enclosed, more like the crawler. The “turtle” travelled under the water for the most part, but not very deep. There were many interesting creatures to see, and at one point they even went over a shiftskin settlement, which was actually pretty hard to spot without Aivsi pointing it out, despite being so colourful.
Obviously, the hyperionites were extremely interested in almost every object and creature they saw. They took a huge number of pictures and videos in extreme detail in hopeful atempts to find out as much as possible about the exotic alien ife they saw.
Nero also took this chance to discuss Suon and Saelian physiology. The nuwaigans were, of course, highly interested in this as well so they too took notes and asked nero many questions. A few hours later, the group arrived at Hiko’s city.
They first saw it from the surface from afar. It seemed rather small for a city… and then their ride dived down, revealing that the part of the city that was on the surface was only a small fraction of it. It was iceberg-like in shape, most of it underwater and tapering down to a point at the bottom. Their ride floated through a gap in the giant woven net that seemed to encompass the whole underwater part of the city. The net seemed to have very long spines woven into it. Must be to deter levaithans, since the spines were far too big to be dangerous to nuwaigans. Once inside, they could better see the structure. It was just as woven on the inside as it was on the outside. It seemed like it had been put together with driftwood, giant seed pods or nut shells, other flotsam, and quite possibly giant bones. All tied together by kelp, rope, and probably some sort of giant spider silk. "You have built an entire city out of nothing more than biological material."
They have built an entire city out of nothing more than biological material.
Like so many things on this world, the hyperionites would not have believed anyone else if told there existed cities like this. Yet at this rate, they would not be surprised.
"This.. I, uh..."
The hyperionites are at a complete loss for words.
Aivsi, in a rather joking tone in response to the first comment: “What else were they supposed to build it with, rocks? Certainly wouldn’t be a drifting city like that…”
Several hyperionits chuckled before hearing this. Nero answered Aivsi despote the potentially rhetrical nature of their question: "Various materials, Aivsi. Metals, some kinds of concrete, or even exotic matter sometimes. We have several cities that float on water like this, but none of those are biological. They would float on a large pontoon-like platform. Like a balloon, but much bigger and stronger and able to support a city."
Hiko: “Oh, we do have the inflatable things! They’re made from kelp airsacs. You can’t really see them from in here or directly below but if one of you wants to follow me into this canal when we surface, I can show you.”
Nero: "Yeah, sure? Zan could also come too."
Zan: "Yeah, why not?"
Hiko: "Okay!" The ride surfaced in a big round pool the middle of the city. It seemed that in between big platforms and mats that the city surface buildings were built on were gaps big enough to serve as canals, which all joined here. The surface buildings seemed to be a bit different from the underwater ones in design. Both underwater and above, the city seemed not crowded but still bustling with activity.
As the dome opened, allowing those inside to step out, Hiko said with pride in their voice: "Welcome to Horizon, my home city!"
Bigos: "Thanks Hiko!"
Anasyth: "This place... it is an honor to be part of the team to discover this."
Caistori, looking out for the first time: "What the..."
Epsilon took note that they have attracted the attention of many inhabitants already! Some of the residents would even follow the hyperionites, as they were soon to find out.
Epsilon: "We have attention, and a lot of it. Bring your best behavior everyone!"
Bigos: "Should we go and see more of it? Rather than.. staring at this.. marvel?"
Nero, highly reluctant to be the first out of the dome: "Fair call, you first!"
Reluctantly, Bigos follows Hiko through the city, with the other hyperionites following them. They would not show it but were partly worried by the possibility that the entire city could probably collapse, since materials they were used to working with would be far stronger and more reliable than any biological material. That they knew of anyway. But then again, they have that world tree, that should collapse according to everything they know... Hiko looks at Nero. "Want to follow me into the canal now?"
Nero looks at Zan: "Ready?"
Zan: "Yes, lets go!"
Hiko dives into the canal with more grace than they have seen from them in low gravity or on land so far, and once in the water they can see where the FastFins get their name. Their movements are very quick and responsive, although they don’t go too far. Once in the canal, they can see that the platforms they were on are actually quite thick, approximately 2 meters.
Hiko swims up to one of the sides, and says, while underwater: “The top and bottom of each platform is built from seatree wood, kelp, spinner silk, mothertree seed shells, or a combination of some or all, as you saw. But in between the top and bottom…”
They pull aside some of what must be the silk they mentioned and kelp on the side of the canal, and inside they can all see what seems to be a series of giant, oblong pale greenish things. The kelp airsacs. Each one is big enough to fit maybe 2 or three people inside, and they all seem stuck/tied together with more of that silk-like material.
“They’re mostly for flotation, but the pressure of the air inside changes when a storm is coming, so they’re also a warning system. When the city starts to sink, you know there’s a storm coming. The more it sinks, the bigger the storm. The slight sinking also helps us to get knocked around a bit less when the storms come.” Nero, despite not being able to talk underwater, seems quite interested anyway as he takes a much closer look at the kelp airsacs. He shortly allows Zan to have a turn looking too, though.
Zan: "Thats.. interesting. How do they change the air pressure? How do they know when a storm is comming?"
Hiko: “All the air pressure changes when a storm comes. We used to use the kelp floats just for measuring the pressure but at some point we figured out how to build them into the cities. A few of the older ones don’t have them though.”
Zan: "Oh, I see... Interesting. Ihat's clever engineering. Very useful I would imagine."
Hiko: "Indeed!"
Hiko shortly swims back to the surface. It would shortly become apparent to Zan and nero that some of the other nuwaigans jumped in too. After all, the nuwaigans loved water.
Nero also returns to the surface. Zan is still making his way up.
Nero: "Well, thanks for showig us that! You appear a lot bigger in the water than on land though... kind of caught me off guard there."
Hiko: "No problem! And ha, I guess we do… you don’t really see anybody’s full length or wingspan on land."
At this point, Zan surfaced. He regurgitates a massive amount of water.
Hiko and the other nuwaigans seem startled and concerned for Zan:
Hiko: “Are you alright??”
Zan: "Yes, sorry, we just have to clear our esophagus before we can breathe normally again. Painless process, thankfully."
“Good, good…”
Nero takes another good look at Hiko's full water size for possibly the last time in a while.
Nero: "Should we get back on land?"
Hiko was lingering close to the edge of the canal.
Hiko: “If you want to, but you could also follow through the canals for most of the way if you prefer...”
Hiko heaves themself out of the water with their wing-fins, back on land.
“I’m going on land cause I don’t wanna accidentally get too far ahead of you!” Hiko makes another small chuckle noise
“They’re probably gonna stay in the water though.” they say, gesturing at the nuwaigans still in the water - Oro, Aivsi, Lorelai and T'wani were in the water.
there’s a chorus of various agreeing statements:
T'wani: “Yeah!”
Aivsi: “Definitely!”
Oro simply made a silent nod
Lorelai: “I hadn’t realized how dry I was getting in all the excitement!!” Nero: "Actually, in that case... maybe it would be fun to swim with them.."
Zan: "Yeah, sure, I guess."
Nero turns to the other hyperionites "What are you guys doing?"
Agyasi flies over to Hiko's location to walk with them "Hello Hiko."
Hiko: "Hi, Agyasi!"
Kilatak finds objects on the roof to cling to and follow the group above the water
Anasyth: "Im gonna come too, but I'll be slower because I will need to stay near the surface to breathe."
Bigos: "The rest of us are probably just gonna walk."
Ahiit: "Sounds good!" Zan: "Coming to play, Anasyth?" Zan lightly chuckles
Anasyth: "Yeah."
Zan: "Good luck."
"Have fun!" Zan started feeling particularly bold today.
Zan: "Hey, Oro? Can I get a ride? I wonder what it would be like to hold onto you as you swim.."
While underwater, Nero turns to look at Zan partially in shock almost as if he thinks Zan is crazy
Oro lowers themself to make it easy for Zan to grab on. "Sure!"
Anasyth: "Hey, dont leave me behind!" he slows down to let out a light giggle
Many of the hyperionites on the surface watch them semi-play in the canal
Zan grabs onto Oro's wing close to the base so that they arent as easily thrown off if they try to flap.
Zan: "Hehehe!!"
Epsilon: "Zan, you realize Oro is like three times your length right?"
Zan: "Yes, yes, I know..."
Through a combination of manta ray-like wing flaps and tail movements, Oro is propelled through the water along with Zan. It seems that oro's tail can rotate both vertically and horizontally, but Oro prefers to move it up and down when not turning. They go relatively fast, but clearly are trying to not knock Zan off, and their swimming is quite smooth and graceful. Also, oro's fin-wing oscilates slower than earlier.
Many of the others would watch oro and Zan for a moment. Oro is already moving faster than any of the hyperionites would be able to swim.
Zan: "Woah! Aahhahahaa!"
Oro seems amused by this reaction of Zan’s.
“You know, you kind of remind me of my younger podmates.”
Zan: "Your... podmates?"
Oro: “Yeah. BoomSingers travel in pods, as the ancient nuwaigans did. They usually have between 1-3 clans, families, but there are some particularly big ones that have upwards of five. Whole group travels the ocean. The little ones aren’t quite as strong yet and don’t have the endurance, so when they get tired the adults take turns carrying them. Some of them will try to get you to carry them even when they aren’t tired, and hang on like you are. They make similar noises and often ask to go faster or to breach.”
Zan laughs a bit at the 'similar noises' part "Haha, thats interesting."
He said that shortly before getting distracted and letting go of Oro. He tumbles under the water for a moment before finding which way 'up' is.
"Woah.. that was fun, Oro! Thanks for letting me ride you!"
Oro: "No problem!" The other hyperionites on the surface commented:
Bigos: "Hey, that actually looks kind of fun!"
Agyasi: "You know, that actually looks like a pretty effective from of travel... if you can breathe underwater."
Hiko: “Yes, that’s why our people began as nomads, and the BoomSingers still are. We’ll have to find you a way to breathe underwater yourself…”
Aivsi: “You haven’t seen T’wani fly yet!”
T’wani seems slightly embarrassed to be directly called out like this
Bigos, taking a look at T'wani: "I mean.. T'wani does seem like the perfect build for it. Can you demonstrate?"
T’wani: “I can’t here, the canal is narrow and the water is calm. We need an open ocean or a high place to glide a shorter distance from… I think somebody could pull a video of one of our pods waveskipping though… Owok’t, you have your tablet accessible right now, right?”
Owok’t, getting out a gel device and showing T'wani: “Yeah, it’s right here - I'll get a video up!”
As Owok't gets a video of the SkySkimmers gliding through the air, all of the hyperionites approach to see the video. They seem highly interested.
the SkySkimmers in the video flew much like flying fish, but they also breached / jumped in a fashion more like dolphins.
It was at that moment that they came to a branch in the path and canal, and from one direction they heard more chatter than they had already been hearing, and the smell of something cooking...
Credits to Kyliera for contributing their lore.
Recommended reading:
Blue Text - Hyperion Federation Point of View
Green Text - Mauwairi Point of View
White Text - Both POV's Roughly Equal I highly recommend to view this article in dark theme. Click on the "Abc" buttons at the bottom of the picture of the starship at the top of this page. This page is highly work in progress!
Neutron27 was the Yunkad captain of a massive Hyperion - Class Worldship Carrier, named T.S. Lepton of the Stars, deployed to several foreign systems to fulfill an exploration duty across the stars. A particularly small star cluster - located about 7 Mly under where the Kenarus galaxy was. No one knew it yet, but what they would find would rock the HSA to the core and simultaneously challenge everything they knew about the stars.
Chapter 1: The Anomaly
Neutron27: "Alright, we have 12 more intergalactic jumps to go. Next, we should see the JE-48 system. Long range sensors are seeing some anomaly there, so be prepared. Set course for JE-48."Ship Operator: "Yes captain, jumping to JE-48 immeidately."
Ship PA: "IGWD jump to the 'JE-48' System Initiate. Inflating micro-wormholes."
Neutron27: "Something in space is emitting small heat signatures. Seems to be more or less consistent with Troznux heat signatures, which is strange."
"Well Captain, we are soon to find out..."
Ship PA: "Micro-wormhole detected. Error is 6.8 light-years. Warping."
"Already? That was quick." It has been an ordinary night like any other on Mauwairi.
Except for one anomaly.
At one moment, everyone on the planet could see another star appear in the sky, from seemingly nothing. This would remain and burn like any other, for a few seconds, before vanishing as suddenly as it appeared.
It's only a small detail, but with potentially massive scientific implications. Most thought nothing of it. If anything, a small moment of “huh. That was strange.” And then continuing on with their night.
But it was a very different story for the astronomers who were looking at the sky that night. It began with messages between a few friends… “hey, did you see this too?”. They met up at an observatory to compare observations, “footage”, and to see if the resident SkyWatcher had caught any of it. They wasted no time in waking up the Reviewer, an organic device purposed to access memories and replay them. The three friends decided to start with themselves, one by one, and then the SkyWatcher. However, due to the finite speed of light, this image would be several years out of date. But was it?
The SkyWatcher finds out that this 'starlight' was actually comprised of tachyon radiation - particles which travel faster than the speed of light. Despite the fact that tachyons were proven to not exist many times.
Possibly of even more interest, it managed to construct an image of a massive object. the astronomers were shocked. They restarted the reviewer’s process a few times, to double check that it wasn’t a mistake. Impossible radiation aside, the thing that appeared on the reviewer was completely unfamiliar. Other than its tapered front, it bore no resemblance to anything, living or unliving, in space or terrestrial, that they had seen before. Running it through the mycelial database to cross reference turned up nothing, even from The Everseeker’s data! It was so strange in its angularity, its perfect symmetry, the symbols they could barely make out. It had a vague sense of purposefulness to it, almost like, but at the same time completely different from, their biotech. It made some of the scientists very uneasy, while it piqued the curiosity of others, and puzzled the rest (much to their frustration)! Personal opinions aside, they all knew that what they had just found was a discovery that could change everything, if they could only figure out what it was. They proceeded to notify every astronomer, researcher, bioengineer, or other scientist in the guild. The word spread quickly, and soon, a summit was organized. This summit/conference was likely the biggest one since the discovery of the fungal asteroid reef. It was held at the Capital, which was home to the largest and most advanced science facility on the planet. All the top minds were there, either in person or, if they couldn’t get there in time, via gel proxies (like holograms, but gel). The observers who first called the summit had prepared a presentation… although they had underestimated how many people were going to be there. A few of them were quite nervous, and that only increased when they saw something that they could only assume was a proxy of The Everseeker, although the form was unclear due to the distance. If They had come back to the planet’s orbit for this, it must have been an even bigger discovery than they first thought. They gave their presentation, showing the image and tachyon radiation readings for all to see. A vast discussion of many differing theories followed, none of which could be proven or completely outruled by the data they currently had. So they ultimately decided that the best course of action was to send The Everseeker to the last known location of the mysterious object to gather more data.
curious… very curious. The Everseeker proceeded to create a wormhole, quickly returning to Mauwairi’s orbit, while still keeping their senses trained on the objects. They sent down all their data, including the pictures. Neutron27: "According to closer scans, they are not troznux. They are definately some sort of biological starship though - we have probably just discovered a new species. Notify the HSA."
"Yes Captain, notifying."
Neutron27: "I would presume they would want us to study them deeper though, so initiate FTL jump to that system, but we should exist just outside of the system, in case they percieve it as an attack on their breeding ground or something."
Ship Helms: "Yes sir, initiating warp to the JE-48 system."
Neutron27: "Actually, Banokrol, can you use your green eye to communicate out intent?"
Banokrol was a Rih'kiel with a special ability - his green, glowing eye would allow him to telepathically communicate with any being in sight. Use of this ability would cause injury to him though - so they used ot sparingly.
Banokrol: "You sure?"
Neutron27: "It's the logical option, we dont want to engage them. Too many unknown variables."
Banokrol: "Yes.. sir.. moving." While they weren’t able to tell what exactly the objects were made of, the FTL was certainly a development… an inanimate object couldn’t do that… so the objects must be alive, or at least have a living component.
They decided to wait until the objects, no, beings(?), stopped traveling, and then try to make contact, or at least evaluate the beings’ intentions and communicate to the unknown beings that their own intentions of benevolent curiosity.
As the extremely bright objects tore through the space at immense speeds, they rapidly came very close to the system. If they were to continue, they would shoot past the system and every planet in less than a second.
This did not happen however. As suddenly as ever, they stopped moving just outside the orbit of the coldest planet in the system. They continued to shine extremely bright, but this massive energy signature slowly began to die down. They would just remain there, in high stellar orbit.
It was odd that these things had enough energy for all this. If it were these things causing the star to appear and vanish, it could be very possible they somehow had the equivalent of an entire Dyson Sphere as a power source. What if these were magic starships? Extra dimensional travellers? Forces of God? This sudden stop did not puzzle the scientists nearly as much as the use of energy. There could be many logical reasons to stop there… the main one being to observe the system. This excited many of the scientists, as that could be evidence of beings that were, like them, inquisitive and driven by a desire to learn. However, the sheer amount of energy??? What could possibly have that much at its disposal?? While the theory of it being some kind of creature still held strong (inanimate objects don’t behave like that in the slightest), this was beyond what could easily be explained because it was completely different from anything they’d seen. These beings were either incredibly advanced, beyond even that of the whales (who were already nearly impossible to communicate with, since they were on an entirely other level of sapience!), or they weren’t from this dimension, or both. Either way, it was clear there was a lot to be learned, even though these developments would probably mean they wouldn’t be able to communicate with beings clearly beyond their current understanding, at least, not without filters… which would likely take many years to perfect, as even the filters for the whales are still in the testing stage. The immense energy signatures continue to reduce in size until reaching a certain point. This certain point, though, is still massive. The bunch of creatures then move to a slightly lower stellar orbit, entering the system. They are sending out occasional tachyon 'pings'. The largest one, the 14 km one, fires out a large number of smaller objects, which all disperse across the system to different worlds and points of interest. One smaller fungal whale, which happened to be nearby at the time, eventually spots a very small, faint green light on the largest mysterious object/creature. Perhaps even more strangely, it gets an odd feeling, almost like some otherworldly entity is telepathically communicating to it. It gets an odd feeling of curiosity, making it almost impossible to look away... Banokrol: "Hello? We come in peace. What's your name?"
Chapter 2: Revelation
Upon making a telepathic connection with the whale, Banokrol gets the feeling that whatever mind or semblance of a mind he just touched is far, far bigger and more intricate than any animal they have ever communicated with. Soon, however, Banokrol gets a sort of feeling of being… redirected? It’s still the same mind, but a different instance or branch of it… and there seems to be another mind. The edge between it and the whale is blurred, but there’s definitely a different being… or perhaps once they were different? It is confusing, but this is the one(?) who actually responds to you, without the overwhelmingness. What Banokrol does feel is an intense desire to learn.Everseeker: “Hello. We too are peaceful, and we are glad that communication is and will be possible… with my other People." when they say “other People”, Banokrol recieves several mental images of a group of creatures… while they vastly differ in appearance, they all share the general body plan of having four arms, one set of which is far bigger and on some seem to have wing membranes connected to them, no back legs, long tails, and four large, innocent and inquisitive eyes. "They want to meet you. I will tell them to prepare.” Banokrol then gets an image of these same people in what appear to be some odd, transparent kind of spacesuit, on top of giant… branches? The image zooms out, showing that they’re at the top of an unspeakably massive tree… one that stretches from the planet’s surface to just above the atmosphere.. and the image continues to zoom out until he can see the entire planet. It wouldn't take long to get a reply. Banokrol: "Our scientists will be so excited to get to understand your race, but to be honest this method of communication is quite unreliable. I'll only be able to keep it up for a while, so I will be quick. You are looking at a fleet of starships of the Hyperion Federation, we are a federation of many different alien species who have unified for the benefit of mutual defence and scientific advancement. This starship I am on - it is called T.S. Lepton of the Stars, and is a Hyperion - class worldship. This is basically an entire city in space. It is interesting to see just how significantly your worlds differ from our own." "To name a few of our species, we have Rih'kiel, Saelians, Suons, humans, Togroid, theres actually quite a lot. I myself am a rih'kiel...
Wait a minute, you are obviously a different species from the ones you've shown me moments ago. Do you protect them from external threats or something? What benefit do you get from it? And that giant tree - is that some sort of space elevator?" Everseeker: “I am… both species." Banokrol is reminded that this mind is seperate, but connected to, the whale. "There is a long story there. The whale you see, and the whale I am woven to, is part of the Reef... The mind of the reef is concentrated in the whales… it is a mind too big for the Nuwaigans, my other people, to communicate with unassisted. They will tell you what happened to me if you ask. but our species are... friends, despite this roadblock. I bridge the barrier, which is why I am talking to you. We, the whales, simply exist here, in space, the Reef… there is nothing to gain other than the joys of learning and living, and to help the ones on the planet learn and grow.”
...
“The World Tree is also part of the Reef, which is another long story. It exists only to exist, but yes… they climb it to reach space.” Banokrol: "Fascinating... we can probably find a way too, our scientists are some of the best in the galaxy cluster." "An organic space elevator though- I have never seen anyth-"
"OW!!"
Just as suddenly as his communication opened, it closed just like that. He did mention that it was quite unreliable... Despite the communication, though, these starships would yet remain an enigma until more effective communication is established. What other secrets would these starships hold?
One of the smaller objects that this ship launched are now getting close to a high orbit around Mauwairi.
Other than that, this fleet remains in this orbit just inside that of the green gas giant. Banokrol: "Ouch!.. The habitable planet.. there is a civilization there. Hand me over to the captain now!"
A nearby officer responded immediately as he gets out a device that would allow him to communicate.
Nearby officer: "Yes, calling."
The officer pushes some buttons on the device while Banokrol gets some tissues that he prepared as to not make a mess with his bleeding eye. Shortly after though, Banokrol is provided a direct line to Neutron27.
Banokrol: "Captain! Ow! There is a civilization on that habitable planet!"
Neutron27: "Affirmative. Do they interact with the bioships?"
Banokrol: "Yes, I jus- OW! - I just spoke to one of the whales! It was so weird, I felt like I was redirected to this.. other mind that is seperate but connected to the bioship!"
Neutron27: "Thats-"
Banokrol: "This other mind appears to be one of the planet people!"
Neutron27: "It.. WHAT?"
Banokrol got the undivided attention of everyone in both his room and the bridge.
Banokrol: "You heard me right Captain! The thing I spoke to is both species! And thats not all!"
Neutron27: "Oh no..."
Banokrol: "There is a huge tree on that planet, the size of a space elevator! It even functions like one! It seems to be connected to the bioships somehow, but I don't know. By the way, they seem to call the bioships 'whales' and the planet people 'nuwaigans'. Both these species are friends, and the thing I spoke to seems to bridge the gap between them. Nuwaigans can't communicate to the whales."
"Additionally, nuwaigans are not humanoid. They have huge wings connecting their huge arms to the body, no legs that I could see, a massive tail, another set of humanlike arms and 4 massive eyes."
Neutron27 didnt believe him.
Neutron27: "Thats impossible. We are going to have to find out ourselves. How long until the drone reaches the habitable planet?"
???: "4 days, 18 hours." The Everseeker, now in a lower orbit around Mauwairi, relays all they had learned to the scientists down below…
The scientists are absolutely delighted by this information, although they did find it odd that the rih’kiel didn’t mention these “starships” when they were listing off species… and why did they say 'organic space elevator' like there was some inoriganic option? They were sure all would be revealed once they were able to have a full conversation… the Everseeker is certainly not very good at explaining things… they had a reputation for being extremely confusing. The upcoming contact with an alien species by now had become big news, attracting the interest of both Nuwaigans and Mautitar alike. People gathered around viewers to watch the contact team - consisting of some of the original scientists as well as communications experts and a few Mautitar representatives and their interpreters - as they ascended the world tree in Crawlers, purposed organisms specifically for going up and down the world tree quickly, donned their gel spacesuits in a building, grown from the world tree itself of course, located near the top, and then proceeding to take their places on one of the highest branches. As the crown of the world tree is approximately 30 kilometres across, they also brought with them large, shimmery fin-like sails - or maybe they were actual giant fins - and many brightly glowing things so the aliens would know exactly where to find them. The whole display was quite beautiful. There was a general air of excitement, joy, and curiosity. As the ~100 m small alien object approaches the world tree more closely, some of the scientists begin to notice something very strange about it's propulsion...
With every other known method to produce force in space, there is always a back blast. The expulsion of these materials is what pushes anything forward, and yet, this alien emits nothing rearwards. It is however apparently being careful not to expose its rear to the tree.
This thing just lingers there, almost as if it is just simply watching the tree from several kilometres above. Is this the entire contact team? Would it even speak the same language? How will we communicate if not?
maybe they hadn’t spotted them?… maybe they didn’t use visuals to navigate? Everything these aliens had done so far was so very, very strange… the seemingly physics breaking propulsion was only the most recent of many things they currently did not understand, so there’s no telling how these species might work.
Therefore, they tried collectively sending out a pulse. It wouldn’t convey anything since that required direct contact, but hopefully the aliens’ senses or receptors or whatever they have would pick it up. Shortly after the pulse was sent, though, it begin sending signals on several different frequencies to many locations on the planet itself. These would carry highly complex mathematical formulae. Is there a meaning behind this? It would take any mathematicians a fair while to figure this out. The signal falls silent and then repeats itself every few minutes.
Due to the altitude difference between the tree and starship, the latter would visibly 'lag' behind the tree as it orbits at a slower speed. It eventually left visual range, much to the disappointment of many. Hopefully, this would be a clue to help them establish communications. Meanwhile, similar objects arrived at many other worlds and points of interest around the system. At least they knew some basic information about this society and their intentions... the contact team was frustrated… based on the readings they had collected, the aliens had definitely recieved the signal. Why weren’t they coming? Did they misinterpret it perhaps??
At about the same time, they received notifications for the many scientists below, across the planet. All saying the same thing, that they had received signals from the aliens. Scientists of all marks started to get to work on decoding it… Meanwhile, the contact team in the tree were trying another idea… sending back frequencies and messages of their own using Communicators. It took a while (and a trip down to the surface) to make the proper modifications to get it to transmit to a location instead of to another communicator, but once it had been properly modified, they began to send things.
The first signal they sent was “Hello! We, the contact team, are here on the top of the world tree. We await you with joy and anticipation!” In their language. They were pretty sure the aliens wouldn’t understand their language, but since they were clearly quite advanced, maybe they’d be able to translate… some scientists were much more skeptical.
The second signal sent, after a few minutes, was a short piece of instrumental music. A rather upbeat and happy tone. Music is one of two universal languages they knew of. While waiting to send a third signal, and debating on what it should be, they got another notification from the scientists down on the planet. The signals they had received appeared to be complex math problems, although they hadn’t been able to figure out the answers yet. So the third signal they sent was also math problems… starting with a couple of simple addition problems and increasing in complexity to the same level as the ones they had been sent. ... Eventually, one particularly clever mathematician was stunned to find out that suddenly they managed to derive an entire message from the equations!
HYPERION SETI SIGNAL
WE WILL TRANSMIT OUR LANGUAGE VIA SETI SIGNAL
RESPOND "JEN-OAU-VTB" TO AFFIRM
In the meantime, some bright flashes are seen around the crown of the world tree. These have left behind people!
Chapter 3: Terror
The scientists and mathematicians down on the surface were within a few minutes able to send back the affirmation code: JEN-OAU-VTB. They were absolutely delighted with their success… but when they went to turn on their viewer and communicators to tell the contact team, they were horrified by what they heard and saw. All the Nuwaigan members of the contact team had their tendrils retracted, and were at least doubled over if not fully collapsed or writhing in pain. The Mautitar members (who, oddly, did not have anything resembling an air tank on their suits), wincing from the pain and other feelings that the Nuwaigans were inadvertently projecting - thankfully not at full strength - had to stop a few of them from floating away, and were trying to move them as far away from the people as possible, not entirely sure what had happened. In a panic, the scientists down on the surface tried to cut through the screaming to ask what had happened— the only answer they got was one who managed to gasp out; “TOO MUCH! TOO ENERGY-LOUD! IT HURTS!”-- before the communication was cut off by more screaming. The scientists on the surface hurried to get a message out while the Mautitar in the tree tried to get as many of the Nuwaigan scientists back to the surface as possible, as quickly as possible, all while staying to the outskirts of the branches as not to come close to the aliens. The message the surface scientists send reads: PLEASE STOP. YOU ARE HURTING OUR CONTACT TEAM. ENERGY TOO STRONG. YOU TOLD US YOU WERE PEACEFUL, WHY ARE YOU HURTING US? Almost immediately after landing, it has become obvious that they made the first mistake. After seeing what they've done, they waste no time in teleporting back up to their starship, leaving behind nothing more than flashes of light. They managed to teleport away extremely quickly, but the damage has already been done. For many, the pain would linger for days or weeks. They still have no idea what they have done (they could not translate the scientists' message), but would make sure to not teleport anyone else down until they knew with certainty what the issue was. For all involved, this catastrophe was horrible. They knew they are the far more advanced civilization in this interaction, and thus were responsible, but have made the first mistake and obviously caused great pain through unknown means. The worst part was that they still had no idea what they have done; could this cause death? Permanent disability? Or was it as little as tempoary pain? Did this effect everyone on the tree, or the planet? These questions would be on almost everyone's mind, causing a great deal of stress to them all... Apart from that, the nuwaigans would get no acknowledgement from the HF because they didnt yet understand any nuwaigan language. The starship near the giant tree merely continues to send mathematical code to the scientists, who now can act with much more purpose and speed because they now know what the codes are. To add to the confusion, some of the hyperionite contact team returned to their ship, saying they have gained an odd feeling of betrayal, as well as pain and confusion, possibly from the others. No one has actually betrayed these scientists though, adding even more confusion to the hyperinoite scientists. While some of the surface scientists worked on the codes, the contact team had just returned to the surface and to the gathered medics/doctors that had seen what was happening and rushed to the base of the tree to help. They were able to ease the contact team’s pain, but found that all of them were energyblinded by the encounter… a terrible, terrible loss, as Laut’himau was viewed as the way to connect with and speak to the world. Thankfully, most would be able to have their Laut’himau restored through having replacement tendrils/sensor organs grown for them, and a replacement surgery. It would be a long process, and it wouldn’t quite be the same, but it could be done… However, there were two on the contact team who weren’t so lucky. One of them had a rare condition that made their body reject modifications, even those made from their own dna, and so couldn’t have replacements. The other was one of the 5 original discoverers… who was much younger than the rest of the contact team who’s tendrils and control of the sense weren’t actually fully developed yet, making them even more susceptible to the overwhelming energy than the others on the contact team, leaving the part of their brain dedicated to the sense damaged in a way they had never seen before, and so didn’t know how, or even if, they could fix it. This incident, to no one’s surprise, devastated and alarmed the public. What could do this? Was it the aliens themselves or something they brought with them? Was it on purpose, were they not friendly after all? If it was an accident then what would this mean for future attempts to communicate? The scientist who had been assigned head of the project did their best to calm everyone down, assuring that they were currently trying to communicate with the aliens remotely and the fact that they quickly left meant they realized what had happened and didn’t want to cause more harm. While optimism is a default attitude for Nuwaigans it still didn’t quite put them at ease… they’d need confirmation and ideally, communications back, and of course the friends and family of the contact team would still be understandably upset, no matter what. As the entire hyperionite end of the incident still felt an immense sense of guilt and uncertainty, Banokrol would try to appologise to the nuwaigans (telepathically) despite the fact that his eyes were still in great pain from last time. Many of the others on his deck would try to stop him, but being the only person on the ship thats capable of doing this, he went anyway.With all the bravery he could muster, he would once more look out the window of his starship, look closely on one of the fungal whales within visible range, and then his eyes started glowing bright green once more.
This would quickly attract the whale's attention. Banokrol: "Ouch - we are so sorry for what we have done.
We.. we didn't know that your people would react to that so violently... we still have no idea what we have done. Could yo- ouch - Could you let me know what our contact team did, so that we can avoid the incide-
OW!!" That time the communication didn't last long. This time the individual fell to the floor, his eye bleeding, and reaches to grab some tissues. He could then only hope that this entire civilization would magically forgive them so easily, else this effort would be in vain... They do know that they are still receiving affirmation signals from the nuwaigan scientists trying to decode their language though - so, much to their relief, they knew that at least whatever they did would not cause the deaths of every individual on this planet, which would not be much worse than they presumed would be happening. The Everseeker, having picked up the telepathic communication through the shared mind of the whales, immediately relayed the message to scientists on the surface. Those who weren’t busy on the codes, reorganized a new contact team and attempted to grow new 'energy-proof' spacesuits, or other contact related objects. What started as a more localized endeavor watched by the whole world had become a global effort. The scientists who received this communication were relieved— an apology they clearly considered important enough for one of the aliens to injure themself to communicate it? That is not the act of a hostile entity. This announcement did this much to ease the anxiety of the public, along with the information that both sides were still trying to puzzle out each other’s languages for full communication.
Chapter 4: Language Barrier
After a long, painful process spanning just over a week, they would manage to figure out the basics of one of the hyperionite languages - called Suon Common.Apparently, this group would speak thousands of different languages, but also had some sort of automatic translation technology that they couldn't use on the Mauwairian languages because they first need to "decode" it.
They would then open a line to one group on the planet and, trying to use only basic features of their language, would try to speak to the scientists. After a few moments of processing what they have learned form the maths transmissions, one person was able to translate it back to:
"Hyperion to Mauwairi, do you read?" During this time (about 3 Cycles on Mauwairi), many scientists had worked tirelessly on decoding the communications.
Meanwhile, the team working on trying to energy-proof suits had been able to devise something that completely blocked out all the Laut’hi when they tested it on the surface, but then again they literally couldn’t simulate anything nearly as energyloud as what had happened on the tree… so they were dubious about whether it would actually fully hold up… it should dampen it at least but ideally the aliens would be able to fix the issue on their end instead. By the end of the week, the communications officers were having a much better time than the team working on suits. When they received the communication, they were estatic… their first full communication!!!
They replied as soon as they were able to:
“Mauwairi to Hyperion, we read you!” It took the hyperionites a few moments to choose their words out of the very limited vocabulary that the nuwaigans were likely to have, but they responded shortly after. After translating that (which would still be slow but would get faster with experience), it read:
"Affirm. Why were you hurt on the tree?" It would be during this moment that every single soul in the entire fleet would hold their breath. If there was one thing they had to receive from them, it would be this. This information would obtain a massive value to them. The nuwaigan scientists would not know it, but this message would be seen by literal millions, possibly even billions, and it was very probable that this moment would make history for both sides. The scientists paused… they had been anticipating this question, but still weren’t quite sure how to answer. The fact that the aliens weren’t affected meant that they weren’t tuned in to Laut’hi, so they wouldn’t have a proper translation for it. After a very tense ten minutes, they finally replied with:
“You, or something with you, was too Energy-loud. It overwhelmed our sixth sense.” it was followed up in a couple of minutes by another message:
“Like a shriek so loud it breaks your ears. But with Energy, not sound.” The scientists were still worried about them not understanding, but they hoped the second message would help clarify and not make things more confusing even with the limited translation, the Hyperionites would get the sense that there is more to this concept of Energy than the normal word 'energy' they’re used to, hence the capitalization. The hyperionites looked at each other when they recieved it. It's a small message with massive implications. Do they have some sort of 6th sense allowing them to track small energy signatures? Did the energy signatures of the contact team overwhelm this?
Regardless, at least they now knew what probably caused the problem, and could get to work finding a solution. They wondered just how sensitive this was to them... but unfortunately the damage has already been done. If they had to guess, the strange alien scientists that were affected in the blast would now probably be entirely blind to this sense; they knew their energy signatures were massive. Still, they would not want to take any chances. They would still refrain from teleporting back to the tree until they knew for absolute certain that this was the only problem. After all, there could be another sense, somehow, that they might have also overwhelmed, except the nuwaigans - for some reason - only told them about the energy signature itself. Furthermore, the wording of the alien message implied that they had somez sort of order the senses come in - perhaps from most to least fundamental? Captain: "We need to suppress the energy signature of our contact team, effective immediately. Do not deploy them to LZ until I have given the order, understood?"
"Understood Captain! ... I wonder what it would be like to have this.. 6th sense..."
Captain, jokingly: "On our ships? You'd end up like them."
Both give a good chuckle
"But yeah, Captain? Have.. have we ever found any species with anything like this before?"
Captain: "According to the archivists at the HSA, no."
"Across the entire galaxy cluster? Of over 100 galaxies? Fascinating... I bet our xenobiologists would have a field day going over just this data alone." This news would spread very rapidly over wider HF society, as this could lead to advances in knowledge about xenobiology, and also due to the fact it was fascinating. They would send another transmission in response though, which whould translate roughtly into:
"Understood. Teach us your language." After recieving the recent hyperion transmission, the scientists immediately got to work, sending over various resources such as the alphabet, both written and audio of each of the sounds. They also sent audio of themselves saying full words and phrases, which were accompanied by their translations via code. They also called in language teachers to advise on how to do this… they said that even though these aliens were adults, since they didn’t know any of the language, they would have to start the same way that you teach a child. And so words were sent along with images of various objects, and many lessons that would normally be given to small children, slowly going up and up through various levels of education.
Normally, this process takes years of course, but they didn’t have time for that… the process would still be a lengthy one though, at least a week, if not two or even a whole month... However, a few, short days into the process, they were surprised to find they would receive their first voice transmission. T.S. Lepton of the Stars was hailing them, almost like they already knew how to fluently speak their language!! But they haven't even received all their lessons yet... Something weird is going on...
Chapter 5: First Contact
From here, instead of text colours being dependant on point of view, they will now be used for which characters are speaking in dialog. Blue text for the HF, green text for Mauwairi or the Reef.
The nuwaigan scientists were puzzled. Fluency? That fast? Without all lessons and possibly without the anatomy to do so?
They sent a voice message back, along with a code message with the same meaning just in case.
“How do you know how to sing our language fluently so quickly? We have not given you all the lessons yet.”
"We actually don't know it. We fed the information into our translators which can mimic any sound including extremely low and high frequencies. If you use words we haven't seen yet, they might show up as translation errors, but we should have most of your language by now."
“Oh! That is very interesting… it certainly makes communications much easier”
"It's essential for our society. As you may know, our Federation is comprised of a number of many species, most of which speak different languages from each other. Some species physically cannot make the sounds that some others can."
“Makes sense. Does it only do sound-based languages or can it do languages based in gestures too?”
"With the one we have, sound and light only but we can hook a hologram up to it to mimic gestures."
"Hologram? What is a hologram?"
"It's a... machine that projects 3D images into a nearby space. We can show you, but first I'd like to make sure we don't have a repeat of the giant tree incident. Can you list all of your senses?"
“Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and Laut’himau. Oh - Laut’himau is Energy-sense. We realize that might not translate directly.”
"You were right - it showed as a translation error. Can I ask just how sensitive it is? What voltages or currents does it pick up at what distance?"
“Different individuals have different distances that they can sense Laut'himau from, but it’s almost always enough that if you could not hear or see you could still navigate perfectly fine. The Laut'himau of plants is fainter, but for example I can sense the plant on the other side of the rather large room I’m in right now, and where the walls and ceiling are. Animals and most purposed organisms can be sensed from further, but walls tend to block things a bit with their own signature. Also it is a bit more energyloud in here than most places due to how many purposed organisms are in here.”
"That...
That is extremely sensitive, damn... also, we should probably iron out those translation errors. Our word for electrical potential difference is 'voltage'. What's yours?"
“We… do not have one. We have never needed it. We’ve always referred to things relatively.”
"That.. hmm..
Should we try teleporting down to your giant tree again? We can Suppress our energy signatures to the point where they will be largely overshadowed by those of our own bodies, which will cost us a lot of energy, but can be done. Do you recommend any other preparations?"
“How energy-loud are your own bodies? In comparison to ours? Were you were able to get a reading the first time?”
"We don't know how.. energy-loud you are. We had to leave very quickly."
“Alright… for safety, we will send a small Mautitar crew up first. They do not have the energy-sense, so cannot be injured by that, but they also do not verbally communicate… the nuwaigan sect of our contact team will wait at the bottom of the tree until you communicate to us how energy-loud you are in comparison to them.It will take a little under an hour to get up the tree once we have confirmation.” "We have a translation error. What are you sending up?" “People of the other sapient species here.” "There's... Two? How many are there?" “Only two here. Three if you count the whales. They are on another level of sapience above us though, as I’m sure you’ve already found out.” "I see... Are they the ones in space or are they on your world also?" “The whales are in space. The Mautitar are down here. They’re from the jungles.” "Fascinating...
Well, is there anything else you want to discuss? Should we meet you in the weird tree again whenever we receive confirmation?" “I am sure we will discuss much more after we are able to meet.“ "Agreed. Me and my contact team are anticipating this moment, contact us if you want anything. Lepton of the Stars, over and out." They would wait for about 1 hour while the mautitar delegation reach the top. They have already tested their energy signature suppression systems, but will use the time to check it further. Meanwhile, this transmission is recorded and transferred through the HF archive for millions to enjoy in the far future, when this event would become history. Right on time, the mautitar delegation arrived at the crown of the tree. They were completely silent, almost eerily so, but were gesturing to each other. Not just with their hands, but with their other limbs and it seemed even their tail, ears, and mandibles. There were 4 of them.
They also seemed to direct a gesture towards the Hyperion contact team that they could only assume was a greeting as they approached the group. A few of the Mautitar there seemed pretty distrusting and stayed further back, while others seemed much more curious and came a bit closer to look at the hyperionites. This was a bit disconcerting for some smaller hyperionites, as the Mautitar were quite large. Their main body was about the size of a lion’s, and their upper torso gave them quite a bit of added height. Now it was only a matter of time before the hyperionites would be able to check their energy signatures against the Mautitar, and let the nuwiagan contact team below know if they could come up, or not… The HF scientists show no acts of aggression. Unaware of what might be considered insulting in their culture, they opted to do absolutely nothing except the bare essentials, and to carry out their mission.
The HF scientists got out some devices and pointed them at some of the mutitar nearby. They then contacted the original nuwaigan scientists. "Hyperion science team to Mauwairi, come in." “Hello, we read you!” "Excellent, we have found that our own heat signatures aren't too far from those of the... big aliens. We estimate about 130W for those people and we know the largest of ours would be about 150W. Is this within safe margin?" "Yes, that should be safe." "Excellent! Unfortunately we can't talk to the big guys, we don't know their language. They don't seem to be talking... Maybe this is why you asked us if our translators could perform gestures?" “Yes, this is why. They cannot communicate verbally. They were already prepared for not being able to communicate with you at this time, don’t worry.” "We will want to be able to communicate with them eventually. Can you?" “Most of us can, yes. We cannot make many of the gestures but we learn what their gestures mean, just as they learn what our sounds mean even though they can’t make them.
We plan to interpret for them when we get up there… our contact team is currently on the way.” "So we should be able to talk to them using your language, correct?" “Yes, they just won’t be able to talk back without a Nuwaigan interpreter.” "I understand, and look forward to seeing you up here! Hyperion science team out." The hyperionite contact team would quickly notice they were located in a large, almost sealed off section within thet tree. In all directions around them, were a large number of branches. This was presumably to prevent people floating off into space. They also noticed a large circle on the floor about 30 meters away, which caught the curiosity of two of the hyperionites. Eventually, the area within the circle on the ground appeared to… dilate? What was a smooth, solid part of the tree, without so much as a slit to denote a door, was now a pretty wide hole. Out of the hole came, one by one, 7 Nuwaigans of various shapes, sizes, and colors in transparent suits. Upon arrival, the nuwaigans would see 8, large suits that are almost entirely opaque. They have a dark grey colouration with bright blue lines that emit light. They are all hovering near one of the larger branches. They appeared to have a lot of equipment with them. Furthermore, they vary significantly between each other. They can only guess that this would have something to do with the multispecies property their society prbably has. They also have some strange markings on them. Each suit had exactly one of these markings. The hyperionites were stunned to finally see them. Entire weeks of work have led up to this point with no small amount of effort on both sides. Furthermore, although they have seen this species many times through the drones scanner, they would appear very different in person. This moment was evidence that this effort has not been in vain. However, they were not close enough to see the transparent suits the nuwaigans were wearing. This has led them to the incorrect conclusion that they could survive in the vacuum, but that was quickly disproven when the nuwaigans got closer and they saw the suits. Upon being able to see them more up close, the suits appeared to have some kind of plant in them, mostly clustered around the back and neck, where the suit seemed to bulge out a bit to accommodate, but remained streamlined, but no air tanks as the hyperionites would recognize them… quite curious indeed.
What are the small plants on their backs? Perhaps they hold some cultural significance to them; after all, this tree can act as a space elevator for them. One major problem with primitive space travel was that the hardest part is invariably getting into orbit. 'When you left the atmosphere, you are already half way to the destination.' This would allow them to pack massive amounts of ∆v in their starships, which any other civilization would be highly jealous of. It would be entirely possible that they evolved here.
They were also not expecting the nuwaigans to appear so massive up close. The smallest individual of this species appeared to be around 4 meters in length, and the largest 6 meters.
They knew they couldn't talk through the vacuum of space so they instead opted to record these people and enjoy being the first in history to get a proper look at any nuwaigan. The Nuwaigans seemed equally excited to see the hyperionites, although due to their suits being opaque instead of clear, they couldn’t see them anywhere near as well. They had much the same idea as the hyperionites, to record the initial meeting. The hyperionites have already spotted a couple of creatures in the tree. Unbeknownst to them, these were purposed organisms that serve as cameras. They share much of their DNA with Skywatchers.
The contact team, using the branches and platform to maneuver, came even closer to the hyperionites. After a few moments of simply observing the hyperionites from their new, close up position, which the cameras were getting all of quite nicely… footage of this moment would certainly go down in history. The first face-to-face meeting. one of the Nuwaigan contact team members cheerfully reached out their hand towards the nearest hyperionite in a moment of great anticipation for both sides.
Chapter 6: The journey
This is a long chapter so be prepared...
The person that reaches out lingers for a moment before the other person grabs it. They would remain in these positions for a moment.
One of the HF contact team members gave their words to History to speak for him:"One small gesture for us, one massive revelation for the stars..." Of course, the nuwaigans couldn't hear them, but nothing was stopping them from telling them afterwards. To the surprise of the person who had taken the nuwaigan’s hand, that was not a handshake! After a moment, the nuwaigan excitedly starts trying to lead the hyperionite towards the door the nuwaigans came out of. The sight is almost reminiscent of a child trying to show their parent something. The nuwaigan who dragged him away feels an immense force keeping the hyperionite in place before he lets go, figuring it would probably be best to let this person lead him to wherever they wanted. He never thought he would go down in history as the first person to be dragged along by aliens, but history was often unpredictable. The other nuwaigans also start going in the same direction, looking back at the other hyperionites periodically to make sure they were following. Someone else reacted to this and exclaimed: "Woah, yeah, there's our first sign. Let's follow them." Using a presumably similar propulsion method as their starships, they begin to fly around the 0g environment and taking everything in. "They'll presumably want us to take a similar ride down as they took up here." "Yeah, probably..." The mautitar delegation also begins to make their way towards the airlock. The hole in the floor leads to a whole room within the trunk. Most of them went through what seemed to be an airlock. One nuwaigan had to stay behind to allow the mautitar delegation inside the tree after the hyperionites and other nuwaigans. It wasnt comfortable for anyone in the airlock, but there was enough room for all 14 of them. Once everyone was inside, one of the Nuwaigans touched near the edge of the outer door with a tendril, and it closed. It began pressurizing. Once safe, the 2nd door opened and everyone saw a big room. It’s very organic looking, seemed to be hollowed out of the tree itself as opposed to built. There was still no gravity, but the room has many plants, some that look quite similar to the ones in the suits. The opposite wall has a very big glowing blue ring, like the ones that denoted the other doors. Someone asked the rhetorical question:
"Well... what do we have here?"
No one would ever know who asked that, but it was warranted; It was a view that none were expecting. There was also a ninth member of the contact team, but he wasnt present, instead, sitting on the Hyperion city-starship. His name was Mission Control. "Mission Control, be advised: they have led us to this.. biological airlock and this huge room inside.. my pressure sensor is saying we are now in atmosphere. Is it safe to depressurize?"
"Understood. Let me do some analysis here..."
"Affirmative, holding until you give confirmation."
The HF team came out of the airlock, looking around at their surroundings (and automatically recording in the process too). Yet again, they have yet to see anything similar. They would look back to the nuwaigans eventually for directions. However, Mission Control did his analysis faster than expected.
Mission Control: "Contact team Alpha, you are clear to depressurize. The conditions are correctable by your Cybernetic Enhancements." "Copy that, depressurizing." One by one, the visors protecting them from vacuum conditions opened, the air between the tree and suit atmospheres equalized, revealing a different species in every suit. They got their first chance to talk. "Hello?" The nuwaigans were taking off their own suits, but definitely not in a way the hyperionites were expecting. Once again, using their tendrils, they each touched their suits in a specific spot (this time, it seemed to be right where the collarbone would be on a human) and the suits appeared to melt off of them, and coalesce into an orb around the plants that were inside them. The leaves appear to stick out of these new “orbs” though. The nuwaigans proceed to put them into some small half-circle dents in the wall. At this point, the 4 mautitar members and final nuwaigan have also arrived. “Hello!!!” The HF contact team is clearly wierded out by the suits meting off the nuwaigans. They are at a loss for words for a moment. One alien, that appeared to have a mostly clear body, spoke up.
"Hello, now firstly, we dont know if you have recieved that message from that one rih'kiel, but we are very sorry for damaging the energy sense that your people have... I- we.. would like to help, but do not understand the physiology of your species very well. I uhh..." The nuwaigans start to become a bit more somber.
“Oh- oh…”
“Yes, we did get the message… the important thing is that you found out a way for it to not happen now, and that we can heal the contact team, even though it will take a while.”
“Well, except for two of them.”
“Yeah…”
all of them seem to go quiet. Some look at each other and some look down. After a moment of silence, a seemingly entirely inorganic being spoke.
"We do thank you for your trust in our kinda though, but there has to be a way. We just need to cooperate. We have some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy cluster, we will have something. We just need understanding. If you transmit everything you know about the biology of your kind, we will find a way to help them. We have done more harm to your civilization than good, this is our job to fix." “Oh, absolutely! And thank you… there will be much information to exchange, I’m sure… hold on, I’ll call the people communicating with your ship right now, see if I can get them to send the data over. I don’t know how different your communicators are from ours but either way I assume you’ll want to see…” "We will be fine. The federation is a very diverse group. Some of us are made entirely out of exotic matter that doesnt normally exist in nature."
Another one talks, this one visibly bioluminescent
"Like me?"
"Eeexactly. This man's body is comprised entirely out of magnetic monopoles!" “Interesting! In that case… Aivsi, could you get the doors while I call the team on the surface? Thanks.”
The smallest Nuwaigan, presumably Aivsi, opens the large door. As with the other nuwaigans, though, even the smallest one still appeared huge. This door was similar to the other doors they’ve seen so far.. but bigger. The room/airlock it opens up to is quite large, with a… creature? Inside. It was very large creature, with a flat body and five long, strong looking legs. It appeared to have a clear dome strapped/attached to its back. Within the dome, there seemed to be a total of 20 bluish translucent cubes, each bigger than a person. How odd… there was also a suspended walkway that seemed to be level with the creature’s back/the floor of the dome. Meanwhile, the nuwaigan who said they were gonna call the other team pulls out a small, hexagonal box from one of a few pouches on a band around their neck (previously obscured by the plants in the suit) They open it, and reach a tendril inside, tapping whatever is within. Out crawls a small, insectoid creature with long antennae. It sits on the Nuwaigan’s hand, and the nuwaigan brings it level with their face and says: “Hello, surface team, do you read me?”
The critter’s antennae light up as the Nuwaigan talks, and stays lit, flicking with the volume and tone of the speech, when it appears to say, in the voice the hyperion team recognized from the other communications, “Surface team here, yes we read you. What do you need?”
The nuwaigan goes on to explain the hyperionite’s desire to help and needing all the available information on Nuwaigan biology. One of the hyperionites shot up away from the massive creature the moment they noticed it.
"Nero, that.. thing isnt dangerous, come back." one of the other hyperionites left explain what has happened to the nuwaigans and mautitar:
"Sorry, Suons just have a deep - rooted natural reaction to megafauna to shoot it if armed or, if unarmed, retreat. Perhaps you are lucky in that we are unarmed." one of the other nuwaigans looks at the suon, curious in a kind of puzzled, concerned, and possibly suspicious way. The hyperionites get the feeling that if they could furrow their brow that’s probably what they would be doing. “Sorry, some of those words came across as a translation error. Would you repeat that please?” the nuwaigans start drifting toward the Crawler, while still paying attention to the suon. The suon in question eventually slows down and stops at a much higher altitude, looking down, having gathered some strength. "You.. probably wont like it. On the suon homeworld, which is named Tebburus, some lifeforms can grow to very large sizes. And, uh, many of them can eat... our people. So the suons themselves have developed a reaction to try to kill such large creatures." "It looks like Nero is gathering some courage though. Not that he has the ability to kill the Crawler in the first place as he doesnt have his rifle." He was absolutely right, the nuwaigan they were talking to did not like that at all. “Oh… that is quite unfortunate. We’ve got large predators too but we never—“ they’re cut off by one of the others “That sounds a whole lot like our leviathans!” The first nuwaigan, slightly annoyed, continues; “yes, they’re who I was talking about. We never developed a violent reaction though. I’m not a FastFin, they’re the closest to them, but from what I know they just try to avoid them and dissuade them from coming near the cities.” the second nuwaigan adds; “yeah, they’re not really a problem. They can eat us but they can usually be convinced not to. Plus, we’ve got the Leviathan Watch in each city to monitor them and make sure we don’t cross paths with them.” "Thankfully, in times of need such as this suons can apply rigid logic and overcome almost all of their fears. Now that we know that your world has megafauna which is safe, Nero is much less likely to.. try anything." "Is that our way down to the surface?" the nuwaigan with the little bug taps it after they finish their call and it goes back into the box and curls up. They close the box and put it back in their pocket. One of the others answers the question: “Yes, this is a Crawler. They’re purposed specifically for getting up and down the Tree quickly. Come, they won’t hurt you.” a few of the the nuwaigans go first, using the railings and the walkway to maneuver to the front of the dome and, despite it looking like hard glass and tapped the dome with a tendril which, once again, seemingly formed a door from nothing. They go inside and move to the back, before seemingly waiting for the others. The mautitar are some of the first to enter the Crawler. At least this event has answered a few of the hyperionites' questions, such as how they were receiving transmissions despite a clear lack of any technology. How would it be possible that these alien bugs have evolved these abilities? What advantages does it grant them? As with many questions in science, every question answered just bring several more. Eventually the 8 hyperion aliens get in the crawler. Nero was last due to the time it took to traverse the distance, but made it and seems more calm now. the last nuwaigan to enter the dome taps all of the gel cubes on their way towards the back. “Iiiiim gonna assume you guys don’t know how these work?” "Uhh.. are these cubes food for the Crawler? Are we supposed to.. get in?" “Yes, you get into the cubes. They’re relatively new for many of us too, but regular seats don’t really work for crawlers because anything that fits us Nuwaigans and also deals with the different gravities and being vertical doesn’t work for Mautitar and vice versa. Gel cubes fit everybody.” the Nuwaigan proceeds to move into the gel cube next to them, which seems to move out of their way and form around them. Much of their upper body (head, shoulders, neck, arms) isn’t quite inside (although there’s some gel behind them and in front of them like head and armrests), but the rest of their body seems encased in the gel. Once they’ve stopped moving, seemingly comfortable, the gel seems to settle and become much less pliant. The other Nuwaigans follow suit, although the hyperionites notice that many of them have taken different positions. One thing about the gel cubes is that they had many different options for ways to sit. Some of the hyperionites looked at each other. They have already seen a lot of wierd stuff on this planet, but this was something else entirely. They then, reluctantly, get into the gel cubes. This was a very odd thought for many, but were also curious as to how such a ride would feel. Apparently it would be time to find out. "You know.. we never had anything like this. Most races develop some sort of space elevator, but mechanical, kind of like your tree but its a giant cable that stretches into orbit... That technology has been largely obsoleted by our Teleporters though, so the ones we still have are mostly just kept for history. If you ask how teleporters work, though, we will be here all day and your brain would be hurting, so- well, not literally hurting, its a hard thing to understand is what im saying." Someone else comments: "I wonder what it will look like on the bottom.." Yet another comments: "I wonder what those leviathans would look like..." "Patience, patience, we will find out eventually. For now we enjoy the ride." Although it felt strange at first, they were reluctant to admit that it became very comfortable after a few moments. One of the aliens, an Ukztlakat, had a lot of trouble finding a position that worked, but eventually found one. The next thing the hyperionites said seemed to get a similar reaction out of the nuwaigans; interest and puzzlement. “There were a few translation errors there… we got most of it, including teleporters, but the word after you said space elevator and the word after you said orbit… could you try to explain?” as they’re talking, one of the other nuwaigans must have done something because the door(?) they had come in through has just sealed and the crawler began to move. the crawler moves out of the doors, lingering just past the edge for a second, before starting the descent. It seems to have no problem running on a completely vertical surface. It starts out a bit slow but speeds up significantly once it gets going… there would probably be some pretty intense g-forces under normal conditions but the gel seems to almost completely mitigate that. "Inorganic space elevators basically. A large space station that- oh, a large building in space that orbits the planet- is, well, connected to the surface by a large structure, a very long and thin pole often of some metal.. I should show you. I have no idea what this tree is made of, but according to all known laws of biology it should be torn apart by the massive forces involved in..." The outer doors opened, treating the hyperionites, nuwaigans and mautitar to a most spectacular view; the surface, while still far away, was clearly vibrant and lush. Vivid blues and greens as far as the eye could see. And since they were at the very top of the atmosphere, they could also see the stars, and the purple gas giant Mauwairi orbits in the distance, beginning to rise over the horizon. "Woah, Epsilon, Nero, look at that..." "Wow, look at that...." Eventually, Nero the suon would apologize to the nuwaigans "Look. heard you talking about Tebburan magafanua earlier. I'm sorry for that - the conditions are just, well, different from most worlds. We had to evolve that reaction, it was entirely warranted because most life there are a bit more... hostile." the Nuwaigans Nero was talking to seemed quite concerned, but they were just as distracted by the view as the Hyperionites were. No matter how many times they saw it, the view would still be incredible. Nero: "Don't worry though, we are guided by the stars themselves, so we should be fine." "Uhh Nero? They'll have no idea." "Oh right. You see there is this... Structure on Tebburus that we just call 'the stars'." He is again distracted by the view. “Oh! Curious…” there are a few moments of quiet as they all look at the view. "This thing is technically known as the Pyre of Stars, and it is what engineered my species. It is-" he is distracted by the view again. now THIS seems to attract the attention of almost all the Nuwaigans. “You are a purposed organism?” "Yes, we have a purpose. Rumour has it that we were made to roam the stars and save other sentient species from doom. Buuut the Pyre can be quite.... abstract at times. It can often be difficult to understand it..." "A few of our species were engineered actually." “How interesting!! We of course have many engineered species of our own like the crawler and the spacesuits, but we’ve never heard of sapient purposed organisms!” "Fascinating." Nero pauses to let that sink in for a moment. "What else have you made like this?" the Nuwaigans look at each other “Well, many things of course. Communicators, the skywatchers, cameras, computers, certain buildings… the list goes on.” “Some things, like the cameras, are completely engineered and others, like the Communicators, TreeClaw cities, and Gel, already existed, but we modified them to serve a purpose better.” This, like many things on this world, was a very strange thought for the hyperionites. Before coming here, they likely would never have believed if told about a planet even remotely like this. They look at each other, not speaking a word, but it would be apparent that the same thing was on all of their minds: 'They are a lot more advanced than we thought' .... Eventually, one of them does talk "Well. I very much look forward to seeing all the other... Weird things you have." “Same!!” “Oh, and speaking of… I wanted to ask earlier but got distracted. You said that other people built ways to space with… metal? I am curious about the details of that.” There’s some nods of agreement from the other nuwaigans, they were curious too. "I'll get an Archive article about space elevators for you, one moment..." The person in question gets out a device and begins typing on it before handing it to the person next to him, eventually reaching a nuwaigan. Someone set the language to Mauwirian. "Unfortunately our teleporters are a classified page so I can't really show you that..." “That’s alright” A few minutes pass as the Nuwaigan reads the article. They seem very intrigued “This is all very interesting, for sure, but it still does not answer the question of how they managed to make anything out of metal.” "Most primitive races refine metal using some large and extremely hot structures called blast furnaces which can reach temperatures of several hundred degrees. This process tends to be very bad for the environment though, so they eventually develop more advanced techniques. Sometimes metals can combine in a class of materials called alloys. One example being bronze which is a mix of tin and copper." "I am already beginning to see the advantages of your 'technolgical' development. No pollutants to destroy your own planet, no extremely complex logistical networks... It would seem that, honestly, we have completely underestimated your world. We put you down as a hunter-gatherer society because we saw none of those things, which I realise might be quite insulting, so I'll contact them with our new information... This might even turn all of our ideas of xenobiology upside down entirely. Those huge space whales - are they your equivalent of starships?" “Yeah, the closest things we have to the.. 'blast furnaces' are sunforges, for glassmaking. They have a series of lenses that focus light onto the container with the sand, which melts it. We did not know you even could process metal.” “Don’t worry, we don’t take offense from that. Nothing shameful about hunting and gathering. Many still do, my family and many Mautitar tribes included. Sometimes the local stores and your neighbors just don’t have what you want. Plus, it can be fun!” There’s some quiet concerned murmurs along the lines of; “other species destroy their own planets?” “The whales are their own thing. They predate our species by millions of years. We hope to form a partnership with them so that they can be starships, and maybe create smaller purposed ships from their material. But communication has proved… difficult… their hypersapience makes it impossible to safely communicate with them directly through Laut’himau. I mean, you met the Everseeker…” they kind of trail off… the topic of the Everseeker seems to make them uneasy “We know their intentions are good though. They want to work with us as much as we do. So we’re currently working on creating a filter to make things safer for us.” “Also more understandable.” “Yeah.” "Well... You are on the verge of becoming a space faring race?" "That's.. huge. Congratulations, for when you get there..." "Are you a type I civilization? Can you harness all the energy that reaches your planet?" "Who is this Everseeker you speak of? Is it... Is it the whale that rih'kiel talked to? What's... wrong with it?" Some of them remember one detail that the rih'kiel mentioned. It said it was both whale and nuwaigan species. Something went horribly wrong here - or perhaps horribly right. “I wouldn’t say we can harvest all the energy but more than enough, for sure” “And yeah, the Everseeker is who the telepath was talking to. They aren’t a whale… exactly. There is a story there, although whether you think there’s anything wrong with them and what happened completely depends on your point of view” the hyperionites then look at each other, but one got another view. "Wait, I think we are close to the ground now..." Apparently, time flew for them as they had (and still have) so much to talk about. "Oh hey. Could you explain the story?" “It was years ago, but the story goes that the Everseeker was once a scientist named Stargazer, who had wanted nothing more than to explore space, and to contact the whales. Their ambition lead them to become one of the leading experts on space and the whales, so when a whale finally came to the tree— oh, for context, the whales only come around every few decades as part of their natural migration, and usually don’t come close enough for us to be able to make contact, that’s more like a twice in a century thing— stargazer was one of the selected researchers to gather data and see if they could speak with them. The moment they had been waiting for for years had finally come— but then, after they collected more data, they were able to simulate what would happen if they tried to talk to the whales… and it would be disastrous. Their hypersapience would surely kill or permanently damage the brain of the person trying to talk to them. Why exactly stargazer did what they did next isn’t fully known, they’ve never given a straight answer. The most popular theory though is that they were desperate and knew if they didn’t try now they’d be long gone before they next had a chance, despite the risks. That they were so ambitious that this was the only way they felt they could achieve their dreams. So, against all the warnings of their peers, they tried to contact one of the whales, one they knew who had the same hunger to learn and explore as them. And the simulations turned out exactly right… it was too much for them. They would have died right then if the whale hadn’t saved them by… well, fusing with them. Using its own body to keep stargazer alive and its own mind as a support, pulling them into the singular conscious the reef shares. There’s no way to separate them without killing them… they’re bound to the whale for better or worse. Some people think that stargazer lost their mind. They think they’ve reached a higher plane of consciousness. Their family mourned, of course, as the person they knew was gone. But the Everseeker? They were, and are, delighted. They have access to all the knowledge the whales have gathered, and the ability to explore the stars, just like they always wanted. I don’t think they ever thought they’d reach it like this though… Despite not remembering their own name or, at least as far as we can tell, their friends or family, they do still help us and the other scientists out. Mostly it’s just the occasional sending info back from their travels but this time, they brought us you.” They were all stunned. If anyone else told them that, they wouldnt have believed them. "Errr...how did they fuse exactly....?" "That's.. unethical?" "Well, at least he can advance all of our knowledge..." It would seem that almost all of them would have different comments... “That’s… what we meant by whether what happened was a good thing or not is very much dependent on your point of view… but either way, no one is really at fault other than themself. They chose to try to contact the whale, despite the risk.” “And how exactly the fusion happened, we’re not quite sure, since they and the whale were the only ones there. We just know that it kind of partially… absorbed them? It’s a bit difficult to explain. Here, we have an image; it’s not a great image but it’s the only one they let us get… it’s rare they let anybody into the chamber where their body is, they usually just communicate with the equipment they brought with them. How the equipment managed to get there in the first place, we don’t know.” "That..." "Wait, is that his original body there? The 4 eyes? the.. veins that look like nuwaigan wings?" The nuwaigan showing him that picture gives a light nod. They felt the discomfort of this alien, and thus decided to talk. "Yeah, that’s what I thought— that’s why there’s such a controversy around it. They seem content with their situation, but…" "I can see why he would want his privacy." ... "Well. If its the hyperintelligent whales you want to talk to, I believe we have the tools for that. Already. We talk to hyperintelligent beings - both organic and inorganic - quite often. Now all we need is to find a way for our starship onboard AI to find a way to open a line to the whales." the Nuwaigans seem delighted “Really?? You can talk to them safely already? That’s incredible! You guys will definitely have to help us finish our filter… we’re like 70% there but having a couple of issues… I don’t know the issues in detail cause I’m not working on it, I don’t think anybody on this team is, but some of my other friends are” "You mention you have a way to talk to them already? except that way is dangerous? We only need to nkow how you did that. We can contact one of the whales with T.S. Lepton of the Stars' data center and send QEC transmissions back to us." “Yes, Laut’himau. It’s directly tied to the sense that you accidentally damaged in the first team. You see, aside from being able to sense Laut’hi— er, bioelectricity, we can also make small pulses. Nothing super powerful, around the same level as the pulses that govern the natural functions of all living beings we’ve encountered. For animals, it’s the pulses between neurons and along nerves. Plants and fungi have a different system but it still uses bioelectricity. So, with practice, we can mimic these pulses to create different effects. For simpler things like gel and plants, it’s not exactly communication, but we can get them to take certain shapes or grow certain ways. For more complex things, like most animals and some fungi, such as the whales, we can use the pulses to trigger certain emotions or concepts. Pull thoughts to mind by essentially making their mind produce that thought, if that makes sense. It requires quite a bit of training and some familiarity with how that particular organism’s nervous system works, but oddly the whales are actually really similar to the fungi we have on the surface, just far more intricate.” "Oh... so unless you want to be hooked up to our starship, I dont think that's gonna work." Epsilon: "Im sure they would be willing to help you with those... filter things thou- WAIT!" "Epsilon? What is it?" Epsilon: "That... that sounds strikingly similar to a Shockworm." "We... you are kidding, right? Shockworms induce voltages way too high for th-" "Not when you're careful!" "..." One of them turns around to the nuwaigans "So a shockworm is basically an engineered symbiote that can create massive electrical charges using small appendages that it grows on the host. They are powerful enough to power our equipment for surprisingly long, but I think he is suggesting to teach some shockworm hosts how to use Laut'himau... I dont think it would work, but.. I dunno, maybe..." "Theres no way your gonna get the precision needed.." “I… don’t know if that would work, but we could try? It’s quite interesting that you have a non-sapient creature that uses bioelectricity like that though.” "None of us are shockworm hosts but im sure there will be several willing to try on our worldship.... if they dont just blow the test organisms apart with every single attempt..." "Actually, you know what, it is probably best to just help with the filter things instead. We can't complete it for you, but we can leave clues. Im sure that should be of much help." It seems that during this time they forgot to ask a quite important question. "Oh wait, what are your names?" The one who’s been talking the most responds. They are a very angular Nuwaigan with bluish black and white speckled dots that almost seem like pibaldism. In addition, they have several markings trimmed with a gold-like material and large, blue eyes:
“I’m Hiko, this—" they gesture at the large, serious one who reminds you of a storm in colors. "— is Oro." Oro nods in the hyperionite’s direction.
"The one sitting in the front there is Ahiit." The -hiit is pronounced as a whistling sound. Ahiit, who is rather lanky in appearance and seems to lack the big fin-wings, waves. They almost look like a shoreline, with a sandy underbelly that fades to a pale green and then darker teal on their back, with white markings throughout, waves.
"The one across the way from me is T’wani." T’wani looks very aerodynamic and sleek, moreso than the others. Their pelvic fins and finwingspan are huge, and they’re even more lightly built than Ahiit.
"The little one over there is Aivsi." Aivsi waves excitedly. They’re very high-energy, and yes, smaller than the others, albeit a bit chubby. Around the size of an average human it seems, but twice as long due to their tail. Their colors constantly shift.
"The one way in the back there is Lorelai." most of the Hyperionites can’t see Lorelai pretty well but they can see that they seem to be glowing, casting a soft golden-whitish light onto everything around them. The closest Hyperionite can see that they have a very elaborate fin/crest around their head and neck, and a particularly intricate tail fin. Lorelai says “Hello!!”
Hiko picks up again, “And lastly, we have Owok’t!” Owok’t also is missing the fin-wings, but they also seem to have long fingers where the others had shorter digits on those limbs. They’re a mossy green color. They wave at the hyperionites with one of their larger limbs, contrasting with all the other nuwaigans who were probably incapable of doing that - and therefore used their smaller arms. "Oooohhh, how interesting! It's great to get to meet you all. You are a very diverse bunch."
It was at this moment that the hyperionites also decided to introduce themselves. Nero, who has a purple skin and bight blue bioluminescent patches, and who has been talking the most this whole time, talks first: "I am Nero! My species are called suons, and I effectively lead this team." (WIP)
"Are you the same species? You are all sort of similar, but like, vary way too much to be the same species... one of you - Lorelai i think - seems to be bioluminescent.. I uhh..."
But before he could finish, someone else begins.
"What are those patterns on your arms? Did you paint those? Are they just a part of your biology somehow?"
Someone asks, referring to some strange tattoos that appeared on the nuwaigans' left arms.
In the meantime, one of the other hyperionites are trying to pronounce Ahiit's name (with not much success) but seems to be having fun doing it.
Ahiit seems to find the pronunciation failure pretty funny, but not as funny as Aivsi finds it.
Hiko explains: “We’re all Nuwaigans, but we’re all different Lineages. Subspecies, essentially. The only lineage we don’t have represented here are the DeepDwellers, since they’re from the abyss.”
Owok’t adds; “Honestly the pressure thing isn’t much of an issue anymore cause we have suits for them, and they’d do fine in zero gravity, they’re just too bit to fit in the crawler, at least not with other people.” they make a noise that is probably a laugh. Hiko again: “Yeah, not to mention they have difficulty on land. Anyway, the marks on our arms are called Kau’ora marks. Yes, they’re painted on. The symbols each mean something, and together they tell a story about the life of the person who has it. Like, this symbol here is my graduation from school, and this one is when my city had a really close run-in with a leviathan, and this contact will definitely warrant a faceted star symbol, which is an achievement/event of the highest level. It is a great honor.” "Woah, that's interesting... How big are these 'DeepDwellers'? If they can barely even fit in this crawler..." Of course, Nero the suon had to ask about the leviathan: "Wait, a leviathan nearly destroyed one of your cities? How did you survive? How many died?" This catches the attention of most of the hyperionites. They would all be concerned for Hiko and their family. Oro answers the first question: “Twice as big as me, sometimes three times as big” Hiko responds to Nero; “Oh, nobody died. Couple people were injured though, and quite a few more were seriously rattled. It wasn’t a full-on attack, we just drifted too close to a parent and its offspring, and of course they’re very protective of their children, so it tried to make us leave by aggressively posturing and roaring and hissing and we can’t turn the city fast enough for it so it did end up taking a couple of houses out on the rim, only one of which had people in it. They were mostly fine though, aside from being scared out of their minds and some minor scratches and bruises from the debris. The Leviathan Watch was able to get it out of there before it did any more damage though. The most effective, albeit not any less dangerous, method for dealing with this particular situation is for somebody to get close enough to touch it so they can tell it that we mean no harm, aren’t a threat, and calm it down and get it to take a different path. That’s what we did this time. most of the watch distracted it while one of them, dubbed the Speaker, was able to get close enough and talk to it, and then it left.
I’m not on the watch but I was helping the first-aid people who were dealing with injuries out, so I was close enough to be able to see it really well.”
“Everybody in the city ended up getting one of these marks from that day”
“We usually try to avoid crossing paths with Leviathans, that’s why the Watch, in every city, keeps track of them, but this one didn’t have a tracker on it yet. The watch fixed that though, managed to get one on the calf while the parent was distracted too.” "Oooh, im glad to hear that nobody was killed... interesting that it listened to you like that. How did you track it? Did you put some creature on it (You call those 'purposed lifeforms' i think)?" “Yes, we use a purposed organism.” "Wait. I think somethings happening, I feel a bit heavier..." "Are we slowing down now?" "You did mention that we were getting quite close to the surface..." “Oh, we’re here!” The crawler riders can see out the dome that they seem to be in a clearing in a jungle at a relatively high, altitude. The entire area, as far as the eye can see, is shaded from the massive World Tree, although it’s not exactly dark. Many plants and fungi here are bioluminescent. There are a few other crawlers, seemingly sleeping, tucked into hollows as the base of the tree. The clearing the crawler ends up coming off of the tree and into has many people, Nuwaigan and Mautitar, of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It seems they’ve come to greet them. The crawler slows to a stop and kneels on the ground. Ahiit, being the closest to the front, is the first one to exit the gel and open the 'door'. They step out, to a lot of cheering from the people gathered. They then motion for the hyperionites to come out next.
Chapter 8: The Greeting
Zan: "Well, it seems we have a lot of people waiting for us."Bigos: "We were never supposed to be famous, we just happened to be the 8 who were tasked with contact..."
Zan: "Come on Bigos, I know we aren't Pioneers, but they had none available... we should be fine though."
Nero: "We already breached protocol, Agasi."
Agasi: "What are we gonna do then? Teleport back up to the Lepton in front of untold millions?"
...
With that in mind, the rest of the hyperionites make attempts to get out of the gel. Only a few are successful, but those that werent recieved help from the other hyperionites, who appeared to be incredibly strong with these suits. Someone calls for the attention of one of the nuwaigans, as if he is talking to them: "Oh, nuwaigan, would they want to see us in our suits? Or would they want us to take them off?"
Oddly, he was talking as if it would be posible to take the suits off. They almost seemed as if they were part of his body at this point...
Ahiit: “Up to you really! People just really wanna be at this historic event, be able to see you guys in person. I will admit that I’m rather curious, but whatever’s most comfortable for you.”
Oro: “wait, what’s this about a breach in protocol?” "Hmm.." The one that asked the question turns around to the other hyperionites still in the crawler, while another one answers Oro's question:
Zan: "According to Hyperion first contact protocol, first contact absolutely must be performed by Pioneers at all cost. Pioneers are individuals specially trained for these kinds of events and are extremely skilled. The federation puts so much work into making all of their first contacts work because, well, it is EXTREMELY important to get right, and you get no 2nd chance. A single mistake can stain relations for years to come, and.. actually, this is freaking me out so ask me later..."
Anasyth: "Alright, take off your power armour. I think they want to see us, and dont forget, this is history, so bring your best behavior."
The various hyperionites behind responded with some variation of "Yes, Anasith!", exact wording varying between individuals. Once again, the textures of their armour have changed. Large slits have soon formed on the rear in several locations of their armour, eventually allowing it to open up rearwards. Everyone stepped out of their armour one by one, revealing a member of a different species every time. "Alpha to Mission Control, could you teleport our armour back to the Lepton?"
"Affirmative Alpha, I read you. Teleporting your armour back into the ship. Should we melt them back down into matter plasma?"
"Yes, Mission Control. Over."
Shortly after, a number of bright blue flashes appeared once again. The shining suits of armour of the contact team have vanished, leaving just the team itself.
"Right. Who's ready?"
"Born ready, Anasith." the Nuwaigans still in the crawler seemed very interested in the process with the suits. T’wani seems like they’re about to ask a question but Lorelai stops them with a tap on the shoulder and “There will be time for questions later, we don’t want to keep everybody waiting..”
it seems like they want the hyperionites to leave the crawler next. The last of the nuwaigans would follow. Shortly after, the hyperionites step out of the crawler one by one, to bravely meet the crowd. At least they would go down in history as discovers rather than cowards.
One of them, Kilatak, has a bit more trouble. This alien (of the Ukztlakat species) seems to move primarily by tentacles, but managed to find a tree branch to grab onto as he left the crawler.
Owok’t notices the struggles of Kilatak.
Owok't: “Ah, yeah… I’m more used to trees too. Do you need some help?”
Kilatak: "I.. oh, I found something to grab, I should be good now.."
He manages to swing out, following the other hyperionites, just at a higher altitude as he continues on his way as he finds more branches.
Owok’t nods; “That’s good.” One of the others asks if they have some way to speak to the crowd without having to yell extemely loudly.
Oro: “Yeah I can quiet them, one moment-“
Oro lets out a low, throbbing humming sound. It’s not particularly loud but it’s the kind of vibration you feel in your bones as well as just hearing it. The crowd quiets down almost instantly
Oro: “Ok, try now!”
"You have nothing that can amplify my voice so they can all hear?"
"Hmm..."
“They should all be able to hear you. Not at this volume, but projecting a bit without shouting should work.”
Nuwaigans have excellent hearing in comparison to most species.
“We could also use the communicators to amplify your voice if you prefer.”
Nero: "You reckon so? I'll give it a try..."
Nero's bioluminescence is noticeably brighter than it was on the crawler. He turns towards the crowd.
Nero: "Hello nuwaigans and mautitar!
We are a contact team sent by the Hyperion Federation!
Our goals here are to cooperate with and learn about your kind!
And we.. uuhh.. are a multi species federation from several galaxies quite far away!"
It would be relatively clear they have not been prepared or trained for such a moment.
The air of excitement had a bit more confusion in it now — but the crowd seems pretty supportive anyway. Most of them seem to be more interested in just seeing the strange newcomers. Nero turns back to the nuwaigans near him.
"Are they confused? What do they want to know?"
“I think they just picked up on your uncertainty and were confused about that.”
"I mean - we aren't uncertain, just unprepared. Very well though." One of the other aliens tries speaking to the crowd.
"We are a federation that occupies 4 galaxies about 10 mega lightyears away on average!
We have unified under a single banner with the goals of mutual scientific advancement and defence!
And.. oh, we have a lot of different species on our city-starship that's in the high stellar orbit!
It's technically called a Worldship though, and is named T.S. Lepton of the Stars!"
there’s quite a bit of murmuring upon the second comment. The crowd appeared to be extremely impressed by the notion they occupy 4 galaxies. Another hyperionite talks to Oro:
"Nuwaigans must have some very good hearing for this to-"
He just noticed the massive ears on the top of Oro's head and looked around at some other nuwaigans - they all have similarly massive ears.
"- And I think I just found out why..."
Oro blinks, and flicks one of their ears “Your hearing is less than ours? Interesting… I’ll have to make a note of that." Yet another alien speaks up, directed to the crowd:
"[Do you have] Any questions!?"
A huge clamor starts in the audience. None of the individual questions could be made out. The crowd does not appear angry, mostly just very curious and eager to learn.
Oro let out another throbbing hum, and people quiet down pretty fast, although there’s some little flickers of confusion and annoyance. Hiko speaks up; “Woah!! Woah, ok, clearly, there’s a lot of questions… how about we write them down and we can try to answer all of them later? Anybody have a tablet accessible right now?”
A hand with a vaguely tabletish looking thing shoots up in the crowd
“Ok! Ok good, could open up a notes thing and pass that around please? Thanks, we’ll get that back to you.”
This seems to satisfy most of the annoyed persons. The hyperionites turn to each other once more.
Zan: "Uhh, Caistori, I thiink we shouldn't ask for questions again.."
Caistori: "Seems like they have that sorted honestly. Do you think we should split those questions between.. like a few thousand individuals?"
Zan :"Maybe not actually, we could just send them some of our Archive articles for them to research and... well... do whatever they want to do."
The hyperionites are not quite sure what to do next. Epsilon, who seems to be entirely mechanical, says some words to the crowd
"Yes, we occupy 4 galaxies. It used to be 6, but 2 were destroyed, regrettably. And yes, T.S. Lepton of the Stars is pretty much a flying city. It has a population of several million. Its a long story, but we might just send your planet a transmission about our history. There were far too many questions for the 8 of us to realistically answer. Also, the chance that the same question was asked many times is extremely high."
The notion that 2 galaxies have been destroyed terrified the crowd for obvious reasons.
Anasyth: "Epsilon? You probably shouldn't have mentioned the hyperqu-..."
He stops himself from mentioning the event.
Epsilon: "Understood."
Anasyth then proceeds to pat the robot on the back before moving elsewhere on the stage. This awkward exchange would continue for about 30 minutes. During this time, many questions on the tablet were answered, however, not all. As Epsilon mentioned, the hyperionites simply didnt have the resources to answer them all. Some people have noticed that they never answered many questions about the 2 galaxies that were destroyed...
(Kenarus, Anadeia)
Chapter 9: The Unspoken Language
About 1 hour later.The crowd is gone, but the contact teams of both the HF and nuwaigans are still near the base of the world tree.
Zan: "I wonder what it feels like to, well, be influenced by Laut'himau."
Bigos: "What do you mean?"
Zan: "Well, they did mention that they have these... tendril things that they can use to interact with other beings."
Bigos: "Oh, that... yeah, that's quite curious..."
The one alien that had this idea turns to one of the nearby nuwaigans, which happens to be Lorelai this time.
Zan: "What do you think? Is it a good idea? For science?"
Lorelai: “Well... I could try. I’m not completely familiar with your species’ Laut’hi patterns but they don’t seem to dissimilar to some others I’ve worked with.”
Zan: "Then can you learn them by.. studying them? reading them? Can we tell you about my biology or..?"
Lorelai: “Study, yes. We have special maps that we make and use specifically for this called Laut'hi maps but I don’t expect you’d have them.
A detailed diagram of the nervous system or equivalent would probably work. They brought me along because I tend to pick up new patterns much faster than many.”
Zan: "Yes, im sure we can provide this easy.."
He looks at the other hyperionites nearby.
"For science?"
"For science!" The alien in question gets out a strange device that he uses for a moment before projecting an image nearby, a map of the nervous system of the species of this person. Miraculously, it is a 3D image.
"If you need it, we can study ourselves all the way down to the atomic level, so I can display an extremely accurate map of all quanta of my nervous system. But I doubt that will be of use."
Lorelai is excited by this diagram.
“This is actually almost perfect! And, lucky for you, I don’t need to actually do a complete study since I don’t need to be prepared for every contingency.”
they proceed to start looking at and investigating the image, going very in depth. Mostly looking at which parts of the brain is responsible for what and what different emotions look like. Approximately 15 minutes later:
Lorelai makes her way back towards the hyperionites.
Lorelai: “Alright, I think I’ve got enough for a message.”
Ahiit: “damn, they weren’t kidding about you being fast—“
Lorelai walks over to Zan:
“Are you ready?”
Zan: "Of course I am, of course, my fellow scientists will be studying this and its effects on me for years to come, the scientific opportunity alone is awesome!"
Zan gets down on one knee in a highly stable position, ready for Lorelai's influence.
The other scientists are ready to monitor Zan's bioelectricity using several different pieces of equipment.
5 of Lorelai’s tendrils extend from their shoulders and sides, reaching towards Zan and gently coming to rest in a few strategic places. There is one touching each temple, one on the center of his forehead, one at the base of his skull (where the neck and head meet), and one on the top of his head. Lorelai closes their eyes, and the tips of their tendrils glow brighter.
Zan feels a slight tingly feeling where Lorelai’s tendrils are, and then;
Greetings, new friend from the stars. We welcome you.
it felt almost like his own thoughts, but not ones he had thought up. More like when a thought comes out of nowhere. The scientists almost don’t see anything happening, they look like normal thought patterns, other than the fact that they can see surgically precise, subtle electric pulses traveling from Lorelai’s tendrils to different parts of Zan’s brain. The pulses themselves are almost exactly like the ones already zipping around Zan’s neural pathways.
The scientists monitoring then see another series of tiny pulses, instantly followed by the centers and hormonal glands responsible for various positive emotions seeming to have a sudden spike in activity.
Zan, almost immediately after the thought-message, feels a wave of warmth. Not literal warmth, but a warm feeling. He feels safe and welcomed, and there’s also some undertones of curiosity and excitement, as well as some other things he can’t quite pin down. It’s a complex feeling but overall a very pleasant one. Zan is also surprised by all this. He says out loud: "What? How did you-!?"
The answer was very obvious to all parties involved, but this phenomenon appeared like magic to the hyperionites. Zan could barely hold back his disbelief.
"That's.. crazy.. it's like I... It feels great. I feel.. like.. im safe here, I think."
Zan then tries to send a message to Lorelai.
Can you hear this?
Lorelai says, out loud; “I feel there is a question but I can’t feel exactly what it is. I would be able to understand and answer if I fully studied your patterns and nervous system, but I only looked into it enough to deliver that one message, otherwise we’d be here for quite a few cycles, maybe even a season.”
They make a noise that is most likely a chuckle.
Zan: "I see, interesting..."
Shortly after, the alien begins softly laughing from the calm emotions.
"This... hehehe... is incredibly calming.
Zan eventually thought to send the same message back to Lorelai, to see if they could recognize it. Zan also made sure to time it slightly differently in case Lorelai thinks he is just receiving his projection back.
Greetings, new friend from the stars. We welcome you.
Lorelai can also feel the faint energy signature of Zan's Cybernetic Enhancements which keep the person safe from the alien Mauwirian atmosphere. However, this is very easily distinguishable from Zan's natural impulses. This was observed as a high frequency pattern that repeated extremely rapidly and consistently. Almost like it changes direction through the circuitry at extremely short intervals.
Welcome friend.
“Yes, that I [translation error], er, hear. Understand.”
“What’s this other energy signature that you seem to have? I assume it’s some of your… technology, since it feels like it’s been muffled or suppressed, and seems to be unnaturally consistent in its pattern.”
"Intersting, I see..."
"Theres.. another signature?-
Ooh, yes, that would be my implants."
The 2 then linger there for a moment before Lorelai retracts their tendrils, although the feeling from before still lingers
“Implants?” Zan was quite disappointed now that the tendrils were retracted. This warm emotion would stay for a long time though. He would remain in this position in hopes that it would happen again.
"Yes, we basically had to incorporate technology into our bodies to be able to survive in alien environments. Without them, we would likely die in these conditions. We breathe a different chemical makeup than this world's atmosphere."
Lorelai: "Ah that makess sense."
Nero eventually interrupted "I would be curious to see what you think of my species nervous system. Im sure it will be quite unlike anything you have seen..."
Kilatak: "Laut'himau might not work on Suons though."
Lorelai: "Why not?"
Nero gives a nod to the question and projects a different 3D image, presumably of the suon nervous system. Several things become almost immediately apparent (in chronological order):
1 - it is extremely simple compared to any other known sapient race, with far fewer 'wires', which should be impossible with the extremely complex role it serves.
2 - it is far too well - organized to be any average biological being. It was still chaotic, but at the same time far too organized to have formed through any natural process. There would be no reason for this.
3 - the more Lorelai looks at it, the more confusing it becomes, despite its organized nature.
4 - In defiance of all known laws of electricity, no path seems to have any way for electricity to return to its origin point.
5 - the whole brain connection is almost completely nonsensical.
After a few moments of looking, some more conclusions come:
6 - a huge number of brain connections seem entirely redundant.
7 - For all Lorelai knows, this might not even be made of a material that is conductive.
8 - There is an entire section of the brain that is extremely complex - but entirely isolated from the rest of the nervous system.
9 - This section has the most redundant connections of any part. Lorelai is extremely confused. It would appear that the mysteries of the hyperionites would still be comming hard and strong even well after communications have been established.
Lorelai’s immense confusion is obvious.
“This is… I’m going to be honest, I don’t know what to do with this. Or where to even start…”
Hiko: “What? Really? Lemme see!”
they come bounding over, take one very intense look at the projection, and then
“What the [translation error]” Nero: "Perhaps we should give you a helping hand...
Our nervous systems are not based on the principles of electricity but on light. Instructions are transmitted from the brain not as electricity but as individual photons. The advantage of this is a very rapid reaction time and different frequencies can be used for different muscles, hence the smaller number of larger 'cables'."
Lorelai: “Oh! Curious… curious indeed.”
“It does make a little bit more sense with that information… hm. We’d have to make some sort of filter or translator thing to change our Laut’hi pulses to light pulses if we would want to be able go connect… hmm.”
Nero: "Possibly, yes. Oh, and you probably don't want to try to interfere with that isolated section of the brain. That stores my equivalent of the DNA. You see, we are not comprised of a large number of 'cells'. The entire suon body is one single large cell."
“Oh! Yes, that we are quite familiar with. Never see a single-celled organism as big as you though. Our biggest is probably around half your size, and much more… sedentary. Not as complex and certainly not sapient.”
"That seems to be fairly common for worlds with natural life. You see, the Pyre probably made us this way to be more easy and versatile to biologically modify. During our history, we have performed a not insignificant amount of genetic engineering on ourselves, giving rise to several different rare, but existant, 'special genes'. I have one actually, the water gene, which allows me to breathe underwater and swim to incredible depth. If I had to guess, I probably still wouldn't swim as well as your kind, but still probably quite well."
“It is quite interesting, how there are many paths toward making one more malleable to genetic engineering. The response our species took to it so easily is through the Laut’himau. Not directly since you can’t exactly edit dna with just electricity, but it led us to be able to make and use other tools for that quite effectively.”
Hiko cuts in: "Oh, speaking of swimming… how well can the rest of you swim?" Epsilon: "Hyperion Sentient Robots are all designed to be submersible, but I am too heavy to swim. I would be capable of walking on the ocean floor even to massive depths though."
Kilatak looks at his tentacles before speaking shortly after: "I would.. immediately drown"
Bigos: "Fairly well. I can withstand the cold quite well, but other than that..."
Anasyth: "I cant swim that well, but I can do it!"
Caistori: "I'm alright..."
Zan: "My species was practically designed for water and land, so I would be able to do it very well, yes"
Agyasi: "I cannot swim because my wings would be damaged, but I can fly..." Hiko: “Alright, good to know. We’ll try to keep you above water for now then, assuming you guys want to stay a little longer to eat and generally see more of the planet?”
Anasith: "We are here on a mission, but I guess we can see what a day in the life of a nuwaigan is like..."
The HF contact all look at each other seemingly in agreement.
Caistori: "Yeah, this planet sounds interesting, I would be down..."
Kilatak: "Yeah sure!"
Chapter 10: Horizon
The trip to Hiko’s home city was a bit longer than the one down the tree, but it was certainly not boring. The first ride was through the jungle, on the back of a large, spindly creature that scurried across the top of the canopy. Apparently the only place they use gel seats were on the world tree crawlers. These were more like cushions on the floor with straps you fit over yourself. The fit wasn’t terrific for some but they made it work. The canopy runner accidentally startled a few bird-like creatures on the way, as well as, at one point, a much bigger thing that would remind those who had them of dragons. This startled the hyperionites.When they got to the coast, they switched to something that looked more like a sea turtle, but only vaguely. This ride was a bit more slow paced, as well as enclosed, more like the crawler. The “turtle” travelled under the water for the most part, but not very deep. There were many interesting creatures to see, and at one point they even went over a shiftskin settlement, which was actually pretty hard to spot without Aivsi pointing it out, despite being so colourful.
Obviously, the hyperionites were extremely interested in almost every object and creature they saw. They took a huge number of pictures and videos in extreme detail in hopeful atempts to find out as much as possible about the exotic alien ife they saw.
Nero also took this chance to discuss Suon and Saelian physiology. The nuwaigans were, of course, highly interested in this as well so they too took notes and asked nero many questions. A few hours later, the group arrived at Hiko’s city.
They first saw it from the surface from afar. It seemed rather small for a city… and then their ride dived down, revealing that the part of the city that was on the surface was only a small fraction of it. It was iceberg-like in shape, most of it underwater and tapering down to a point at the bottom. Their ride floated through a gap in the giant woven net that seemed to encompass the whole underwater part of the city. The net seemed to have very long spines woven into it. Must be to deter levaithans, since the spines were far too big to be dangerous to nuwaigans. Once inside, they could better see the structure. It was just as woven on the inside as it was on the outside. It seemed like it had been put together with driftwood, giant seed pods or nut shells, other flotsam, and quite possibly giant bones. All tied together by kelp, rope, and probably some sort of giant spider silk. "You have built an entire city out of nothing more than biological material."
They have built an entire city out of nothing more than biological material.
Like so many things on this world, the hyperionites would not have believed anyone else if told there existed cities like this. Yet at this rate, they would not be surprised.
"This.. I, uh..."
The hyperionites are at a complete loss for words.
Aivsi, in a rather joking tone in response to the first comment: “What else were they supposed to build it with, rocks? Certainly wouldn’t be a drifting city like that…”
Several hyperionits chuckled before hearing this. Nero answered Aivsi despote the potentially rhetrical nature of their question: "Various materials, Aivsi. Metals, some kinds of concrete, or even exotic matter sometimes. We have several cities that float on water like this, but none of those are biological. They would float on a large pontoon-like platform. Like a balloon, but much bigger and stronger and able to support a city."
Hiko: “Oh, we do have the inflatable things! They’re made from kelp airsacs. You can’t really see them from in here or directly below but if one of you wants to follow me into this canal when we surface, I can show you.”
Nero: "Yeah, sure? Zan could also come too."
Zan: "Yeah, why not?"
Hiko: "Okay!" The ride surfaced in a big round pool the middle of the city. It seemed that in between big platforms and mats that the city surface buildings were built on were gaps big enough to serve as canals, which all joined here. The surface buildings seemed to be a bit different from the underwater ones in design. Both underwater and above, the city seemed not crowded but still bustling with activity.
As the dome opened, allowing those inside to step out, Hiko said with pride in their voice: "Welcome to Horizon, my home city!"
Bigos: "Thanks Hiko!"
Anasyth: "This place... it is an honor to be part of the team to discover this."
Caistori, looking out for the first time: "What the..."
Epsilon took note that they have attracted the attention of many inhabitants already! Some of the residents would even follow the hyperionites, as they were soon to find out.
Epsilon: "We have attention, and a lot of it. Bring your best behavior everyone!"
Bigos: "Should we go and see more of it? Rather than.. staring at this.. marvel?"
Nero, highly reluctant to be the first out of the dome: "Fair call, you first!"
Reluctantly, Bigos follows Hiko through the city, with the other hyperionites following them. They would not show it but were partly worried by the possibility that the entire city could probably collapse, since materials they were used to working with would be far stronger and more reliable than any biological material. That they knew of anyway. But then again, they have that world tree, that should collapse according to everything they know... Hiko looks at Nero. "Want to follow me into the canal now?"
Nero looks at Zan: "Ready?"
Zan: "Yes, lets go!"
Hiko dives into the canal with more grace than they have seen from them in low gravity or on land so far, and once in the water they can see where the FastFins get their name. Their movements are very quick and responsive, although they don’t go too far. Once in the canal, they can see that the platforms they were on are actually quite thick, approximately 2 meters.
Hiko swims up to one of the sides, and says, while underwater: “The top and bottom of each platform is built from seatree wood, kelp, spinner silk, mothertree seed shells, or a combination of some or all, as you saw. But in between the top and bottom…”
They pull aside some of what must be the silk they mentioned and kelp on the side of the canal, and inside they can all see what seems to be a series of giant, oblong pale greenish things. The kelp airsacs. Each one is big enough to fit maybe 2 or three people inside, and they all seem stuck/tied together with more of that silk-like material.
“They’re mostly for flotation, but the pressure of the air inside changes when a storm is coming, so they’re also a warning system. When the city starts to sink, you know there’s a storm coming. The more it sinks, the bigger the storm. The slight sinking also helps us to get knocked around a bit less when the storms come.” Nero, despite not being able to talk underwater, seems quite interested anyway as he takes a much closer look at the kelp airsacs. He shortly allows Zan to have a turn looking too, though.
Zan: "Thats.. interesting. How do they change the air pressure? How do they know when a storm is comming?"
Hiko: “All the air pressure changes when a storm comes. We used to use the kelp floats just for measuring the pressure but at some point we figured out how to build them into the cities. A few of the older ones don’t have them though.”
Zan: "Oh, I see... Interesting. Ihat's clever engineering. Very useful I would imagine."
Hiko: "Indeed!"
Hiko shortly swims back to the surface. It would shortly become apparent to Zan and nero that some of the other nuwaigans jumped in too. After all, the nuwaigans loved water.
Nero also returns to the surface. Zan is still making his way up.
Nero: "Well, thanks for showig us that! You appear a lot bigger in the water than on land though... kind of caught me off guard there."
Hiko: "No problem! And ha, I guess we do… you don’t really see anybody’s full length or wingspan on land."
At this point, Zan surfaced. He regurgitates a massive amount of water.
Hiko and the other nuwaigans seem startled and concerned for Zan:
Hiko: “Are you alright??”
Zan: "Yes, sorry, we just have to clear our esophagus before we can breathe normally again. Painless process, thankfully."
“Good, good…”
Nero takes another good look at Hiko's full water size for possibly the last time in a while.
Nero: "Should we get back on land?"
Hiko was lingering close to the edge of the canal.
Hiko: “If you want to, but you could also follow through the canals for most of the way if you prefer...”
Hiko heaves themself out of the water with their wing-fins, back on land.
“I’m going on land cause I don’t wanna accidentally get too far ahead of you!” Hiko makes another small chuckle noise
“They’re probably gonna stay in the water though.” they say, gesturing at the nuwaigans still in the water - Oro, Aivsi, Lorelai and T'wani were in the water.
there’s a chorus of various agreeing statements:
T'wani: “Yeah!”
Aivsi: “Definitely!”
Oro simply made a silent nod
Lorelai: “I hadn’t realized how dry I was getting in all the excitement!!” Nero: "Actually, in that case... maybe it would be fun to swim with them.."
Zan: "Yeah, sure, I guess."
Nero turns to the other hyperionites "What are you guys doing?"
Agyasi flies over to Hiko's location to walk with them "Hello Hiko."
Hiko: "Hi, Agyasi!"
Kilatak finds objects on the roof to cling to and follow the group above the water
Anasyth: "Im gonna come too, but I'll be slower because I will need to stay near the surface to breathe."
Bigos: "The rest of us are probably just gonna walk."
Ahiit: "Sounds good!" Zan: "Coming to play, Anasyth?" Zan lightly chuckles
Anasyth: "Yeah."
Zan: "Good luck."
"Have fun!" Zan started feeling particularly bold today.
Zan: "Hey, Oro? Can I get a ride? I wonder what it would be like to hold onto you as you swim.."
While underwater, Nero turns to look at Zan partially in shock almost as if he thinks Zan is crazy
Oro lowers themself to make it easy for Zan to grab on. "Sure!"
Anasyth: "Hey, dont leave me behind!" he slows down to let out a light giggle
Many of the hyperionites on the surface watch them semi-play in the canal
Zan grabs onto Oro's wing close to the base so that they arent as easily thrown off if they try to flap.
Zan: "Hehehe!!"
Epsilon: "Zan, you realize Oro is like three times your length right?"
Zan: "Yes, yes, I know..."
Through a combination of manta ray-like wing flaps and tail movements, Oro is propelled through the water along with Zan. It seems that oro's tail can rotate both vertically and horizontally, but Oro prefers to move it up and down when not turning. They go relatively fast, but clearly are trying to not knock Zan off, and their swimming is quite smooth and graceful. Also, oro's fin-wing oscilates slower than earlier.
Many of the others would watch oro and Zan for a moment. Oro is already moving faster than any of the hyperionites would be able to swim.
Zan: "Woah! Aahhahahaa!"
Oro seems amused by this reaction of Zan’s.
“You know, you kind of remind me of my younger podmates.”
Zan: "Your... podmates?"
Oro: “Yeah. BoomSingers travel in pods, as the ancient nuwaigans did. They usually have between 1-3 clans, families, but there are some particularly big ones that have upwards of five. Whole group travels the ocean. The little ones aren’t quite as strong yet and don’t have the endurance, so when they get tired the adults take turns carrying them. Some of them will try to get you to carry them even when they aren’t tired, and hang on like you are. They make similar noises and often ask to go faster or to breach.”
Zan laughs a bit at the 'similar noises' part "Haha, thats interesting."
He said that shortly before getting distracted and letting go of Oro. He tumbles under the water for a moment before finding which way 'up' is.
"Woah.. that was fun, Oro! Thanks for letting me ride you!"
Oro: "No problem!" The other hyperionites on the surface commented:
Bigos: "Hey, that actually looks kind of fun!"
Agyasi: "You know, that actually looks like a pretty effective from of travel... if you can breathe underwater."
Hiko: “Yes, that’s why our people began as nomads, and the BoomSingers still are. We’ll have to find you a way to breathe underwater yourself…”
Aivsi: “You haven’t seen T’wani fly yet!”
T’wani seems slightly embarrassed to be directly called out like this
Bigos, taking a look at T'wani: "I mean.. T'wani does seem like the perfect build for it. Can you demonstrate?"
T’wani: “I can’t here, the canal is narrow and the water is calm. We need an open ocean or a high place to glide a shorter distance from… I think somebody could pull a video of one of our pods waveskipping though… Owok’t, you have your tablet accessible right now, right?”
Owok’t, getting out a gel device and showing T'wani: “Yeah, it’s right here - I'll get a video up!”
As Owok't gets a video of the SkySkimmers gliding through the air, all of the hyperionites approach to see the video. They seem highly interested.
the SkySkimmers in the video flew much like flying fish, but they also breached / jumped in a fashion more like dolphins.
It was at that moment that they came to a branch in the path and canal, and from one direction they heard more chatter than they had already been hearing, and the smell of something cooking...
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