Invitation to Miokalia (completed)

[miokalia]

(((ooc/explanation:
This is like the 'A View of the City' thread pretty much. Anyone is invited to join, but if you want in: you have to do it really soon.)))


Hanz T Dovoroy International Airport, Dorigan



President Phong and Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Elly Sorenson await the arrival of the delegations on the tarmac of the north-most concourse of the airport.
An aide mentions that Secretary of State Andertol has yet to arrive. Phong nods.
A news truck from DCN is parked nearby, as well as a few other vehicles. A swarm of photographers and camera-operators have found their perches on top of the cars and vans.
This section of the brand new airport was closed for the dignitaries’ arrivals.

President Phong was a Malych mechanical raptor, orange plates down his back, silver in front. His eyes were tiny inset camera-like devices behind panels of clear plastic with LEDs giving them both an orange color as well as slight glow. His body moved with perfectly organic flowing motion despite being completely inorganic. He wore a grey and black pinstripe suit, and a blue neck tie. His tail, articulated at 4 points swayed back and forth.
Secretary Elly Sorenson wore a green dress suit. Her hair was short and tied back.
The executive limo was parked nearby. As well as three police vehicles.



Phong turned to Secretary Sorenson and said (in Kohtohkhan):
"Dy shaot-ko iyle do Dal Izixs qo"

"That would be nice. Although, he is a very busy dragon so they will most likely send someone else. I have faith that Tinis will not let us down.", she said back.

"Ya itsoh, derovoh chtko droyan, kavo na"

"I think they will find our accomodations most pleasing.", she replied

"Ya itsoh, Initiso kue disch... ta tiacham na?"

"... They have an idea of what to expect. I mean, how many other nations have a president of... inorganic physiology?"

President Phong looked wryly at her and said in a flat voice:
"zero one zero zero"

They stared for a moment and then both laughed a bit.
"I guess maybe four... in binary... ...I swear everyday is a freaking sci-fi movie when you're around... I think I'll miss that once Kohastar moves in..."

"Dosch rai."

"I know you'll visit. Only then, it won't be... you know..."

"Kaive nar chalso na?", he asked lightly

"Nar qu coi.", she replied quickly

She blushed a bit at the casual mention of some... personal matters between her and the president and then continued,

"Now Let's be professional. You're representing a bit more than just this country here."


They waited for the plane(s) to land.

[Erenmor]

The first craft to arrive wasn't terribly impressive... a small VTOL plane, painted dark grey with a single red stripe running along the side. It touched down smoothly off to the side and out of the way, the side door sliding open as the engines slowed to a halt.

The first to disembark was a furry, a male grey fox, roughly 6 feet and dressed in a grey uniform with no rank distinctions. The pair that promptly joined him on the tarmac was a bit more unusual, though. Two figures, roughly 7 feet tall each, wrapped in dark grey robes, complete with large hoods, covered from head to toe. The group walked briskly over to the local delegation.

The fox offered a small, polite bow of his head as he stopped in front of the delegation. He had dark brown hair, tied into a short pony-tail behind his head and odd solid-blue eyes.

"I am Xander Morhaime," the fox introduced himself. "I am here as a representative of Erenmor," he added before straightening up, his ears swiveling towards the raptor who appeared to be in charge here.

[miokalia]

The president and secretary both bowed. Phong extended a three-digited claw for handshake.

"I'm glad you made it. Welcome to Miokalia. I am president Halderyyt Phong.", he said.

The fox nodded.

"It is particularly interesting that your nation also has inorganic residents. We may have some things in common there.", said Secretary Sorenson.

"Yes, in fact the automated baggage-handling system of this very airport actually became autonomous by accident while it was being finished. It attempted to communicate with us. It was quite interesting.
We were able to deal with it though and transfer it into another computer. I hear your nation has similar situations.", continued the president.

An aide ran up to them from behind and said something to Sec. Sorenson. She nodded and then said to the delegation,
"The president elect, Li Kohastar will show up for part of this. He doesn't technically take office for another month or so though."

Phong then said, "While we're waiting for everyone else to show up, allow me to explain what we'll be doing next:
First, we will go to Zye City via motorcade. (It is illegal for us to tie up public transit with private tram cars). There, you will be shown your accomodations and then off to make a visit to the Capitol building. Once that's over, we will go to the National Museum of Art, then we will see the Ellias district. Along the way, we will also see several important buildings.
Later on, I want to give you a tour of some of our clean energy infrastructure and our sustainible agricultural systems.

(On your way here, you may have noticed how the whole northern region of our nation is desert. We have only 1% natural arable land, and while that isn't a problem for my mechanical species, the organic species have to eat something. So we have a very unusual method of vertical farming. One which we actually hope will catch on in other countries.)"


They continued to wait for more delegations to arrive.

[Erenmor]

The fox took the offered... claw in his own five-digit paw, shaking it briefly.

"While I'm not aware of any of our machines achieving sentience on accident, and our baggage systems are hardly the chatty sorts, I do get the point... Although I believe the topic's best left undiscussed for the time being," he replied before glancing off to the side at one of his bodyguards for a few moments.

"I do hope that there will be time to discuss political matters during the tour, though," Xander said, turning back to the president. "If I may ask... who else do you expect to arrive?"

[The Union of Tinis]

As that question is asked, another aircraft makes it approach. Its a small single engine jet that appears to be able to only house six passengers at most. Its red, purple, and orange in color, forming different horizontal bands and some smaller patterns. It makes its landing and taxis close. When it gets close, the crest of the Union of Tinis is clearly visible on the side near the cockpit. The plan comes to a stop, the side door opens and a small stair is brought up.

The first person to exit the plane is a very large female bear wearing a decent looking suit, but also a very obvious ear piece. She takes up a position by the door and waits, glancing about occasionally.

Next emerges a rather fluffy looking individual wearing a better suit and no ear piece. The Secretary of State of Tinis, Waldo steps down lightly and comes to rest on the concrete. Oddly, he's wearing shoes today. He pauses and nods to the body guard before taking up a position opposite her.

The third person to emerge appears at first to be a funny flurry of cloth and flesh, but once they full emerge from the small hole in the plane the identity of Izixs is quite obvious. He glances back momentarily to see if one of his horns scratched the doorway, which it did not despite the narrow margin of error. And unlike the other two figures, he wears shorts and a vest over a short sleeve dress shirt.

The unusually matched group approach the others. Izixs nods respectfully to the others and says, "Greetings friends. The Tinisian delegation is checking in. I hope all is well."

[miokalia]

A few more aids are called nearby. Secretary Sorenson notices the press-people gesturing some.

President Phong extends his claw again to handshake with Waldo and Izixs.
"Welcome to Miokalia, I am president Halderyyt Phong. I'm glad you made it. It's a long flight.", said the president.

"Indeed, it was", said Waldo

"I think we've all been on camera for a while here.", she says to the delegations.

A red fox approaches (An aide with earpiece and suit), and tells president Phong something.

"I've just been informed that there will be a delegation from the Kingdoms of Cal. Their departure has been delayed for a bit though. They should be arriving shortly ((Monday)).", said the mechanical raptor.

He looked over at the delegation from Erenmor and said,
"And to answer your other question, there will indeed be plenty of
time to discuss political matters."

A very angular, very glossy dark grey aircraft takes off and can be heard overhead. It travels in a straight line, then a cloud appears to form in front of it, then as it pushes through the cloud it dissappears completely. Everyone watched.

The hooded guards from Erenmor even looked up at it with a hint of interest.

"And that was him. Mechanical dragons can be very... shy...", he then looked at the hooded guards, blinked and looked over at President Phong and asked, "doshos mokaitoh nargen eme-ziheh-six?"

The president's LEDs in his eyes indicated he was rolling them. He said,
"Pardon me secretary Andertol, but I am well aware of that. And they have made it clear that they prefer not to discuss that"

Secretary Andertol shruged and turned to the delegation from Tinis and said,
"Good to see you again, First Speaker Izixs. And you too, Secretary Waldo."

He then turned to the delegation from Erenmor and extended a four-digited claw to the fox and said, "Hello, welcome to Miokalia. I don't beleive we've met."

"I am Xander Morhaime, representative from Erenmor", said the grey fox and shook the allosaur's claw breifly.


Secretary Sorenson then said,
"While we are waiting for the remaining delegations, the President and I will show you to your accomodations. Come this way."

The group followed her to the limos. Boxy, angular vehicles, which appeared to be at least 50% plastic. They had large turbines in the front where the grill would be. All of the lights were stylishly integrated into the rounded corners of the vehicle's body.

They departed the airport and took a beltway around Dorigan to a nice, very upscale Hotel in Zye City.



There were two round towers. It was a structure of Malych design, not at all unusual for the architecture of the city.

Once they arrived, Secretary Sorenson showed the Tinisian delegation to their suites. She said,
"I think you will find our suite most accomodating, First Speaker Izixs. We have prepared for you a suite which has no low-hanging archways or fixtures and features a high ceiling. It was designed to accomodate dragons, as they form a significant portion of our population here."
The dragon nodded and entered his suite, then the Secretary took Waldo to his suite next door. She said,
"This will be your suite. I'm sure you will find the amenities quite luxurious."

On another floor, the President showed the delegation from Erenmor to their suites.
The Fox appeared a bit confused by this, the president explained,
"It is a custom of ours that diplomatic figures accompany their diplomatic guests to their accomodations. Our chefs have already received your dietary preferences, Representative Morhaime and I think you'll find your suite to be quite elegant."

An aide, another mechanical raptor followed the group and when they arrived at the massive double-doors at the end of the hallway, he asked the two hooded bodyguards,
"Will you be needing anything. We can get any inorganic sustinance you may require: Ammonium ion, tdarocel, deochalchim, ordochalchim, magnite, planar carbon..."
The president glanced at the aide who then stopped abruptly and said,
"You can inform us of your needs at any time."

The grey fox nodded and entered the suite, the President and his aide left.


Meanwhile, back at the airport, Secretary Andertol waited for the remaining delegations to arrive.

[Erenmor]

"Well, they're trying to be good hosts, at least," Xander said once the locals had left the room, glancing to his guards. One of them inclined its head slightly, emitting a quiet noise that resembled nails on a blackboard more than anything else.

"No, I'm not entirely sure what that last offer was about either. Though I'd hazard a guess that their sentient machines try to imitate the organic habits and blend in as much as possible, hence the offer. Understandable when they're in the minority, I suppose," he turned to the guard. More nails-on-blackboard sounds came in reply.

"No, I doubt they'd have power cells for your configurations. Besides, we packed enough to last the trip." More quiet grating noises, this time from the other guard.

"Wouldn't have a clue what all that stuff was, either. Wouldn't recommend finding out first hand, either. Not that you need to worry about that." A few more scrapes and clicks.

"Right, right... just stay alert during the tour. I'd rather avoid any incidents," he said, glancing out the window briefly. The guards each replied with a few soft clicks and whirrs. "Mm... I suppose we might as well rejoin our hosts." With that, Xander left the room, his escort following close behind, heading for the lobby where he assumed the locals would be waiting.

[miokalia]

The lobby was a giant round room, with 20-foot high ceilings. The walls were covered in multi-colored tiles forming Mondrianesque designs. The furniture was glossy-white with tiny red, blue and yellow cubes as decorative elements. It was a very destijl styled interior. President Phong stood in the lobby with Secretary Sorenson amongst the aides and security persons. He turned to her and said,
"Hnkave, xui dochoshi korut."

She looked back and as one of the aides came closer and said,
"I could have sworn I heard something like that. Is your speech going out?"

"At least my English is.", he replied.

The aide nearest to them who had been listening then said,
"Are you not feeling well Mr. President?"

"Dashiko na vatsai ker hxossai", he said.

The aide pulled out a semi-transparent blue box. About a quarter-inch thick, 2 inches wide. The president took the item and put it in his mouth. Then there was a series of noises as tiny hidden clamps and other devices manipulated the substance and moved it into place. The president closed his mouth and allowed it to do it's thing.

"Just curious Mr. President, but what do the inorganics from Eremor say they use for power?", asked the Secretary.

"They don't use modular power like us. They are not of the MZA6 specification, so they do not try to emulate the creatures around them at least in that regard. However, I did sense that they were sentient", said the President.

The secretary's expression sank, she asked,
"They're... not MZA6?"

The President then said,
"I don't think that will be a problem. Treat them as you would treat the Malych."
He turned the aide and said,
"Thank you, I beleive that corrected the speech problem."

The delegation from Erenmor arrived in the lobby at about the same time another cabinet memeber showed up with his entourage.

"I assume your suite was to your liking?" said the president to the delegation, he then turned to the entourage surrounding a mechanical dragon entering the building.
"Good to see you made it, these are our guests from Erenmor. The delegation from Tinis is on their way down to the lobby right now, I'm sure."
The mechanical dragon walked right up to the delegation from Erenmor and extended a rugged, four-digited claw and said in a deep, but very commanding voice,
"I'm Secretary of Defense, Gladarus Zagckza".
His handshake was very brisk and hard. Like someone who prefers to get straight to the point.

"Secretary Zagckza will only be accompanying us for part of our trip. As he is very busy.", said secretary Sorenson.

[Erenmor]

Xander bowed his head briefly as he shook the dragon's claw. "Xander Morhaime, Erenmor representative," he introduced himself to the dragon before turning to the raptor.

"The accomodations will do quite nicely, thank you," he replied, taking the opportunity to admire the architecture. His two robed guards also kept glancing around slowly, though their attention was more on the people present in the lobby, rather than its decorations.

[The Union of Tinis]

"Tis is a very pleasant place," comments Izixs randomly. His body guard is the only other person in the room. Looking over his shoulder at Ashely he nods and says, "Which bed do you want?"

"Either will do. But I don't plan to be sleeping when you are, as was agreed."

"Yes yes. But I seriously doubt many more than the Miokalian's and their guests have any idea that it was more than Waldo coming."

The bear smiles at the First Speaker. "Well someone had to fly the plane."

"It could of been anyone at the controls. I didn't have to be me. I could list a dozen furs who have clearance and who are better pilots. But anyway, let's go down to the lobby."

Waldo is waiting outside the door and togeather the Tinisians make their way to lobby to continue the meeting and greeting. And their entrance does not go unnoticed as they arrive. Izixs immediatly moves towards the cluster of secretaries, representatives, guards, and a president with the other two closely behind.

"Ah yes, Mr. President. And you must be, oh, secretary of defense, if I recall correctly? Gladarus comes to mind, right?"

[miokalia]

"If you think this is pleasant (or strange) wait until you see some of our other buildings." said the secretary, "Our national art museum has been called both a 'excellent architectural abstraction' and 'so incredibly, horrendously ugly it could only be an art museum'."

President Phong chuckled a bit at this and added,
"There is a blurry line between art and engineering. Really, to us it's all numbers."

Zagckza looked over to him and said,
"It's a bit more than that."

The president looked around and said,
"While we are waiting for the remaining delegations to arrive. I'll just ramble about this building and stuff for a while:

The Siskitando Hotel was built about 70 years ago, this is the original furniture (it's been repainted). It was designed by a dinosaurian architect but based off of the design of Malych habitation units.
One thing you have probably notice here is that the styling of this building appears to be somewhat... dated to approximately 1950 on the human (christian) calendar.
BUT Since we are 'dirty atheist reptiles' and we never had the christian calendar, we use the Malych calendar:
Which sets the present year at 2198, as in 2198 years after my species became sentient, 2000 years after our probe landed on this planet and 200 years after we declared ourselves completely independent from the humans in this area.

Now back to this building. While the exterior is very Malych-styled, the interior is very Dincotian.

And if you think the Malych calendar is strange. Then the Dincotian one will blow your mind. (It places the present year at 64992. As in 64992 years since the beginning of dinosaurian civilization itself.)

Okay, now I think I'm boring you all. So here come refreshments."

The mechanical raptor looked back at an aide and they exchanged nods. The aide dashed back into one of the offices around the sides of the room.

In seconds several waitors emerged from some double-doors carrying trays with wine glasses and several different bottles of wine.

"We have prepared a diverse wine selection in anticipation of diverse tastes.", said one of the aides.

A waiter began presenting the offerings:
He picked up a yellow bottle featuring very classically-styled label.
"This is an orange honey mead imported from Do Soiyta. (It is unusually sweet)"...

He then presented a blue bottle with a red box printed on the side, full of almost illegible block text.
"This is a plum wine from Dorringanton. It is a vintage from 2172."

He presented a green bottle with dincotian text printed in white on a clear label.
"This is... hmm... you probably don't want to drink this. It is very... very... strong."

He picked up a brown bottle.
"This is a red wine from Holyoke. It is unusual though, because it is very sweet. It was produced using a different process in which the grapes are used as pigment in an abstract-expressionist painting. The artist takes handfuls of the grapes and tosses them as hard as he can at a canvas. They splatter and drip down the canvas, which has been gessoed with raw cane sugar grown in a veritcal farm, and as this happens they pick up an unusually sweet flavor. The juices are collected in a tray at the bottom of the canvas. It is trully a very interesting wine. They say about half of the appreciation of this wine is in knowing the process in which it was made."

Another waitor rolled up a round cart with platters of bread and various meats as the wine was served.

[Erenmor]

"Blame it on being raised on standard-issue army rations, but I prefer *not* knowing what's in my food and how it was made," Xander replied, looking over the wine cart.

"Hmm... for lack of vodka, I suppose I'll give that mead a try," he said eventually. The waiter quickly enough filled a glass and passed it on to the fox.

"Out of curiosity, is this style of architecture at all common in the country, or do you have some other prevalent style?" Xander went on to ask, glancing briefly at the food cart. His guards meanwhile watched the waiters with some amount of interest, though kept from ordering anything.

[miokalia]

"Well yes actually. Zye City in particular has been described as having very 'cubist' housing. Our architectural styles evolved in isolation from human influence. The only point at which we happen to intersect with their styles is in this kind of hard modernism. From there, we continue to separate as human buildings became more conservative, more refferential and literary while we continued exploring abstract geometries, applications and integration.", said president Phong.

"I suppose what he's saying is, a lot of the architectural ideas that were merely temporary anomalies or abberitions in other cultures, quickly squelched out by cultural rejection by most others, have actually been accepted here as almost mainstream.", said Secretary Sorenson.

The president looked around some and then asked an aide,
"Any word on the status on the delegation from Kingdoms of Cal?"

The aide shrugged and made a call to the airport.

[The Union of Tinis]

Izixs sips his glass of the plumb wine. "Well, they have had some interesting transitions of late. Perhaps with all their unification efforts someone forgot to assign a single delegation."

The bear standing behind the First Speaker's eyes wander about the room, but keeps glancing from time to time at the Erenmor guards.

"Time is an interesting subject though, calendars and all. Little known fact, our own Tinisian calendar was switched over to the western around thirty years ago. Easy since there was only a discrepancy of eight years.

"But architecture is a more relevant subject to what we are seeing presently. I have to wonder though, is the structures and systems behind the walls based on the same kind of logic as the exteriors? Depth and complexity of systems is a subject that fascinates me still, and one of my earliest interests was indeed architecture, so its just asking for trouble when the subjects collide."

"Its true," Waldo adds with a smile. "You get two subject that he likes together and he'll get crazy curious."

[Erenmor]

One of the Erenmor guards turned its hooded head towards the Tinis bear. Though the hood obscured virtually every bit of features, there was a slight glint of metal where the guard's face would be before it turned back to surveying the people in the lobby.

"Our architecture tends to place a lot more focus on being functional than decorative. Pre-fabricated elements, blocky structures and such," Xander chimed in.

"We usually keep any decorative elements on the inside, and add them well after construction's complete. Although lately some of the highland settlements have taken to a slightly different approach... from high up they tend to resemble crystal growths on the rocks. Quite impressive, especially when the light catches on the walls," he mused, smiling to himself, handing his glass over for a refill.