Hours passed as George and Birch negotiated, seated at a table she had grown for the specific purpose.“What do you mean ‘provisional’ citizenship, Lady Birch?”“We cannot promise full and lasting entry into the empire as an auxiliary society without first meeting the very emperor we would be swearing our allegiance to, can we, Mr. Stefanopolous?”“Well, if you put it that way... no, that’s an unreasonable request.” George pondered for a moment, then continued, “Very well, I can accept that in our tentative agreement.”“How will you meet the emperor?” Ayaka asked. She agreed that the meeting would be of pivotal importance to both societies, but the logistics of facilitating such a meeting would be an absolute nightmare. Even at their ships’ fastest speed, it would require the emperor of humanity to be absent from Earth for a full year. And that didn’t take into account the length of time he would need to spend on Proxima Centauri b.“We have no idea,” Birch answered. “But until we per
TFS Proxima, the SCIF.“That’s everything we discussed, Sir,” Ayaka said, ending her report to the fleet admiral.He took a moment to consider the information; the meeting had gone in a direction he couldn’t possibly have expected. Initially, he’d expected the worst, given the early hostilities between the trees and humans, and had thought there would be some misunderstandings or ideological differences between the species. But though there were indeed misunderstandings and ideological differences, the misunderstandings had been cleared up and the ideological differences resolved through the brilliant policy of “it doesn’t matter”. Joon-ho’s experiences with them had already indicated that the trees were a tolerant, forgiving, and compassionate species, but as a lifelong military man, Fleet Admiral Bianchi had a decided pessimistic bent to his thought process. And now that he had heard Ayaka’s report, his skepticism was beginning to wane and he was feeling rather... optimistic, a sta
A month after the initial diplomatic contact, the frantic period of activity in the protostellar forge finally came to an end. Ten billion VR pods had been rolled off the production lines in the space of four short weeks; the fleet engineers had truly lived up to their motto—the impossible had been accomplished, it had just taken a short time.Birch and the other treefolk had been invaluable to the herculean task, delaying the birth of their children and ensuring their safe transfer to the pods may have been easy for them, but without their aid, the entire effort would have failed.As the pods were filled with occupants, they were activated on stasis mode, waiting for the quantum superclusters to come online to generate a VR environment conducive to raising and educating them. And during the wait, the researchers of the task force were practically driven insane by the wealth of data generated by their scans. After the initial building and transplantation efforts, it fell to the scient
Lee Joon-ho and Ayaka were walking toward the New New New South Wales Research Base, a couple tons of raw materials hovering in the air behind them, courtesy of Joon-ho’s affinity. “So what do you think the emperor will do? Will he actually come here?” Joon-ho asked.(Ed note: Added another New to New New South Wales since they’re rebuilding it. Not an error, just me being silly and wondering just how many “New”s we’ll be able to add before this arc is finished.)“I’m not sure. I mean, I’m pretty sure he won’t order us to forcefully subjugate the Proximans. I’ve never met him before, but if you look at the history of the empire’s founding and the years leading up to it, he doesn’t seem like the kind of leader to initiate wars of aggression. Even when the rest of the world formed a coalition against Eden, he only defended himself and it wasn’t until they launched pretty much the entire world’s nuclear arsenal at him that he retaliated. And after that, he even put the world leaders on t
(Ed note: Apologies for the spotty uploads lately. I’ve been apartment hunting in 80%+ humidity and by the time I get home, I’m fair well shattered and unable to really do much of anything.)The silence within a nursery was broken by the sound of an infant’s wail. It was allowed to continue crying in the brightly painted nursery for a few minutes, then a merely “pretty” middle-aged woman walked into the room and moved to the side of the crib.(Ed note: For those curious as to why the baby was left crying for a few minutes, it’s an early childhood development strategy. By picking up an infant as soon as it starts crying, you teach it that crying equals attention. In a nutshell, never pick up a crying baby unless it’s sick or injured. Let it cry for a few minutes, then distract it until it stops crying before finally picking it up.)She leaned over the crib and teased the infant with a canary-yellow plush toy until it stopped wailing with a hiccup and focused on the toy, reaching out fo
“How long...” Fleet Admiral Jason Ryfczinski said. “How long ago did this happen?”{Initial scans indicate a range of 30 to 75 years ago, Admiral. More detailed scans will narrow the field,} Teegarden, the task force’s AI, replied.“So there’s a chance of survivors. Signal the fleet: launch a satellite constellation and put the explorer team on short call. Their orders are to find the survivors of this... this unholy massacre, should any exist. If there are no survivors, I want bodies,” the fleet admiral ordered.“Yes, Sir,” the flag comms officer replied, then turned back to his display to distribute the orders to the fleet. “Satellites deployed, Admiral, they’ll be on station in approximately five hours.”“Split the fleet, send half of it to Teegarden c. The other half, including the Teegarden herself, is to approach Teegarden b and enter a high equatorial orbit.”“Aye aye, Admiral,” the flag tactical officer replied. “ETA to high equatorial orbit around Teegarden b is eleven hours.
The messenger was swiftly ordered to proceed directly to Earth, escorted by the picket detachment nearest to her. After signaling an acknowledgement of the order, the small vessel’s VI fell into formation between the two corvettes and behind the destroyer. Once everything was in place, they lit off their gravity drives and began maneuvering through the Oort cloud and the Sol system’s heliopause beyond it. As it passed through the system, the VI communicated with CENTCOM and received the updated map and access to the system plot, allowing it to see all of the public ships in the system. Almost all of the industry and shipping was distributed along the system ecliptic. Humanity still thought of things along 2d planes, it seemed. But it was unimaginably difficult to overcome hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years of evolution telling the species that ground was ground and sky was sky. Learning that “down” was more loose as a concept than they had imagined would naturally take s
“Since the foundation of the empire, We have taken pride in our track record of promises made, promises kept. And today, We are here to deliver on one another of those promises: Our thousandth fortress city.” Aron stood at a podium addressing the public in one of the new fortress city’s government squares, a space about as big as an American football stadium. The entire area was filled to the brim with citizens who had nothing but smiles on their faces as they listened to his address.The people watching Aron’s address live would be among the first to finally receive keys to their new living spaces in the fortress city Aron was currently using as a venue for his speech. They had been anticipating the day they would finally become property owners in the empire ever since their interior designs had been approved.Over the past six months, fortress city after fortress city had been coming online and filling with residents in an orderly fashion. There was something to be said for the orga