The Sollipsis hung quietly in an orbit high above Pax II. Its crew was, on every part of the ship, loudly and vigorously debating the complete overload of information they were receiving. Every single member on board the ship had been put to work, and even with its contingent of over a thousand people, it was an arduous process. Most of the work, of course, was being done by the large cadre of scientists on board, but the Admiralty hadn’t wanted to waste too much space on board the ship for a theoretical xeno-anthropological division. It had been deemed too unlikely for humanity to make first contact on the Sollipsis mission. Cathérine couldn’t help but curse them under her breath. She’d just been down to one of the labs to give the scientists there a speech about brand new chances and opportunities, trying to get archaeologists, biologists and physicists to work on a new project, and already found new and exciting ways to get annoyed when she arrived on the bridge to loud debate. For a moment, her vision flashed white, and she wondered if she was still feeling the side-effects of the shift jump.
“We can not interfere,” Chief of Security Mayes said loudly. “Everyone knows that!” Most of the Sollipsis’ officer staff was gathered around the holographic display table, showing both planets, abstracted. There was a web on both of them, indicating the extensive civilizations built on both. After they had deciphered the first transmission, Communication’s Officer Holloway -- currently in rapt debate with one of her colleagues -- had quickly ascertained that the message hadn’t been for them. Research had been careful, taking only the slightest step forward whenever there was certainty that they wouldn’t be harming a young civilization by approaching. “Besides, we can’t trust them not to do something catastrophically stupid if we show ourselves now!” The target of her wild gesticulation was Hasan who, to his credit, didn’t seem to be taking her animated-bordering-on-aggressive demeanour personally, instead contemplating everything she was saying.
As time went on, they’d learned a few things. Pax II and Pax III were both populated by sentient, sapient life, of species that were clearly evolved from a single ancestor. They were hairless, octopodal life-forms with large mandibles, two sets of forward and sideways-facing eyes. They were somewhat reminiscent of cephalopods on earth, though more angular and bony. What celestial event had caused them to exist on both planets long before they’d even invented the concept of language was something for the astrogeologists and -biologists to figure out. What else they’d been able to learn, largely thanks to Holloway’s unceasing effort to begin translation of their respective languages, was that their civilizations had evolved at roughly the same pace, and had, at some point in the last century, achieved a form of radio-communication with each other, which had promptly broken down under the military eye of their respective largest nations. Now, two nations on two planets, species barely aware of the concept of space-travel, were moving resources in what, according to a psychological report from below, strongly appeared as military posturing. And they were doing so by rapidly assembling hydrogen-fusion explosives.
“The idea,” Hasan said, “of non-interference in the face of thermonuclear armageddon for not one but two civilizations…” He shook his head. “I can’t find any way to justify it.” He looked at Eva, who seemed ready to already throw in a rebuttal. “You’re not wrong,” he said, “I just want there to be an alternative.” Clinton paced left and right in front of the table when he saw the Captain. He paused for a moment, but she shook her head briefly to indicate that he should continue. She didn’t want to interrupt this conversation yet with a loud ‘Captain on the bridge’ and a bunch of pointless salutes.
“You’re not wrong that showing ourselves would probably lead to a quick testing of the Sollipsis’ shields against nuclear weapons. I think we’d all like to avoid that.” He brought up a simulation of a location that the research teams had designated as ‘high priority’. There were dozens of what appeared to be missile silos, remarkably similar to the ones that had started to dot Earth’s landscape in the second half of the twentieth century. “The problem is that I don’t disagree with Mister Prakoso. If they both start firing at each other, fallout alone is likely to guarantee the destruction of one, if not both civilizations. Neither of them has any kind of defense against a coordinated strike.” He rubbed his chin, grimaced, then clasped his hands behind his back. “From what we’ve learned, these are fully sapient beings as we understand them. They have lives, wants, desires, and not one on either planet has either set foot in the house of the other. This impending war…” He took a deep breath. “There’s something wrong about it.” He looked at the Captain again. “I would like to confer with Captain Durand. There might be a solution here we’re not seeing. I’m vehemently against risking the lives of the people on this ship to make a show of force. I don’t think putting them in a get-along shirt is going to do much good. Captain,” he said, now saluting. That was her cue. Cathérine stepped forward, and her officers all saluted her.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said with a slight smile. She looked at the table. The conflict, according to Holloway and the team assigned to monitoring the situation on both planets, was escalating. Fast. It was cold at the moment, but there were several times on the table, indicating expected, minimum and hopeful estimates of when either side would initiate conflict. They didn’t have long. Days at the most. If they were going to act, they’d have to do so soon. This was not how she’d envisioned first contact. She’d hoped for diplomatic engagements with tall, gentle creatures millennia their senior who had moved beyond petty conflicts. Not… this. Not squat little angry creatures that shouted at distant cousins on the planet next door, pointing weapons at each other.
“Orders, Captain?” Clinton asked.
Cathérine sighed. “I’m having the ship’s Chief of Medical and her team’s lead psychologist sent up.” Pacing back and forth, she looked at the table again. “Mister Prakoso, I’m going to want a full report on these civilizations before midnight. Concise, if you can. Work with the other teams. Something stirred this conflict, and if we’re lucky, we can pacify this conflict before it begins in earnest.” Hasan nodded, and returned to his terminal. “Ms Mayes, if I’m not mistaken, we have some high-intensity lasers in the ship’s… arsenal.” She hesitated to even call it that. The Sollipsis barely had anything resembling weapons, but it did have some ways to defend itself. After the Europa incident, she’d insisted on something. Officer Mayes nodded. “Please try to see how many of these we can bring to bear at once. If this whole thing pops off and it comes to interplanetary missile warfare, I want both parties to be as toothless as possible.” She looked at Mayes. “And find us an optimal position. Worst case scenario, both sides are wiped out. But only one genocide is still a loss.” Evangeline saluted, then left to go oversee the ship’s armaments, already plugging away numbers into a tablet. “Everyone else, to your stations. Mister Blake, with me.”
She made her way to a conference room a deck below, Clinton silently alongside her, also running numbers and simulations. From what Cathérine had gleaned, if this thing escalated to a full-scale war, the chances of either species surviving were close to non-existent. As they entered, the Chief of Medical, Francesca Riel, turned to face her. She’d been talking to a tall man Cathérine identified as the ship’s psychologist, He’d been leading the xeno-anthropological efforts, though she couldn’t think of his name at that moment. Clinton looked at her for a moment, then seemed to recognize a look in her eyes and handed her the tablet as if he was handing her a report. It had the man’s file on it, and only because of her steel resolve was Cathérine able to suppress a smile. Despite Clinton’s age, Cathérine was quickly coming to realize that he was an incredibly valuable First Officer, able to anticipate her needs and represent her on the bridge when she was busy with other duties.
“Doctor Riel,” Cathérine said, nodding at both of the gathered doctors and stealing another quick glance at the tablet, “Doctor Drake.” Both of them turned to her and saluted. “Tell me something I don’t know yet.” She sat down in the chair at the head of the table and urged them both to do the same. “Ideally some good news.”
“Well…” Francesca said, “we’ve come up with several ideas on how to proceed.”
Cathérine steepled her fingers. “Am I going to like any of them?”
Doctor Drake sat down. He had an intense expression, like he was trying to observe everything in his environment at once. For someone whose field was, ostensibly, all about listening, understanding and helping, he had the air of someone who was prepared for incoming hostility, who was always somewhat on guard. “No,” he said. “And I don’t like any of them either.” He brought up the now-familiar image of the two planets again on the table in front of them. There was no need for fancy holographic imaging, they weren’t strategizing for military placement. “This conflict is frustratingly reminiscent of one like this in the late twentieth century,” he continued. Cathérine nodded, happily letting the man bring up well-known history if it would allow him to make a salient point. “The problem is that this conflict had been brewing for some time and was the result of thousands of socio-political factors. Even if we translated their language, it would still take years before we untangle the web of propaganda and mythology that led both these species here.” He rubbed his face. He clearly hadn’t been getting a lot of rest, and Cathérine could tell that Doctor Riel was trying to resist fretting over him.
“So what solutions do you have for me, Doctor?” Cathérine asked, before her chief Medical Officer assigned Drake to bedrest. “If I’m going to hate them that much, I’d rather have them out in front of me so I can decide for myself.” Clinton nodded next to her.
“Well…” he said, “there’s a few that I can think of. One, we initiate first contact, and risk getting nuked into oblivion. If that doesn’t happen, we’d basically be in a position where we’re negotiating between the two planets, trying to convince them we’re not working for either party until the conflict is resolved. We could be stuck here for a decade, or longer. And we’d be outsiders that don’t speak the language yet.”
“Less than ideal,” Cathérine agreed. “What else?”
“Well, the other option is that we hide and shoot down their weapons until both sides run out and have no choice but to try diplomacy again.” He brought up some numbers. If they displayed the weapons owned by both sides, like Cathérine feared, then they weren’t very encouraging. “That would take only a matter of months of extended warfare but, knowing military strategy, they’d keep several weapons of mass destruction at hand just to make sure, so realistically, this solution would also have us stuck here for several years.”
“Heavens,” Clinton said, leaning on the table. “I had no idea it was this bad.”
“Well, we can always do what we did in Cuba.”
“Which was?” Cathérine asked.
Drake got up and walked around the table. He looked glum. “Contrary to the saying, what prevented nuclear war then was, well, for good men to have done nothing.”
“Refused to follow orders, you mean?” Clinton asked. Doctor Drake nodded. “What are the odds of that?”
“We have no idea,” Doctor Riel piped in. “From what we can tell, they’re a species not unlike us, but we can’t make any calls as to their full psychology yet. From the looks of things, we want to say that they’re similar enough that conscientious objection isn’t an impossibility, but can not make any assumptions like that. We don’t know how extensive their propaganda machines are, and how loyal to their governments they seem to be, although we can draw parallels to our own history based on population movements and visible demographics.”
Cathérine nodded, considering the possibilities. An idea, a horrifying thought, came to her. “I have an idea, but it’s… risky,” she said, then looked at the Doctors, and finally at Clinton. “What I say next does not leave this room.” She told them her plan. At first, they nodded in unison. When she was done, they were angrily shouting at her, but she didn’t say another word as she left.
Her plan involves twelve grams of antimatter, a detached fuel cell, two rubber band balls and those gro-dinosaurs that swell up when you put them in water
is that a reference?
@ikos Nah just being random lol
Dang that is some terrible timing... or hopefully great timing for the aliens?
Natives