|
Post by miokalia on May 25, 2007 22:13:54 GMT -5
"Hm. I'm afraid I actually normally can't eat the Yellow. We don't have the enzymes to actually digest substances derived from complex mammals. It would likely make me quite ill.
This is why we have these tablets for this.", said Plumaas, revealing a bottle with a quite large white, chalky pill.
She then took a small piece of the yellow gelatin and ingested some of it. She seemed neither impressed nor disgusted. Though it seemed she was prepared to be disgusted, so she was slightly impressed that it was better than imagined.
Chon took some and seemed to display a neutral opinion about it.
Wray looked at the gelatin and then at Santus and said, "I do not expect you to provide the form of sustainance I require, As I am currently in possesion of enough and am able to acquire more if necessary."
Chon then said, "You can plan on feeding one less person, You don't have to worry about feeding him, he's mechanical."
Plumaas sighed and said, "He's wearing a rubber skin because sometimes other cultures react very adversely to such individuals, I should say 'most' cultures actually do on some level because most cultures haven't been around this species for 450 years as we have. I don't blame you for it, since it really is just basic instinct to be somewhat repulsed by something which does not fit into the binary 'living' or 'dead' continuum.
So he will continue to wear the rubber skin as so not to produce discomfort or create any more of a spectacle than our presence already may have caused.
Of course, if you are curious, I'm sure Wray would be willing to expose his natural appearance to you."
|
|
|
Post by Santus D Lupinus on May 26, 2007 7:03:09 GMT -5
Looking quite amused and pleased, the Great one helped himself to another bowlful. Although mildly intrigued by the mechanical being, he seemed not to really care all that much. His focus was more tuned to the sounds of "yaking" coming from the bathroom.
|
|
|
Post by Kingdoms of Cal on May 26, 2007 19:01:35 GMT -5
Baron leck looked up from his bowl of some sort of strew, he wasn't entirely sure what it was but it seemed to taste good enough and he wasn't having any hallucinations. Which was reassuring as that had happened once on a visit to Teer, how was he meant to know that the dish he had been eating was narcotic in nature. He was still living that down, but it had made the rest of the dull conference some what more interesting.
Leck stands up, which is more than some of his house guard and marries were capable of now. He, unlike them was still 'on duty' so to speak and had drunk lightly, though he was not one hundred percent sober he was well with in his tolerance. This was not true of many of the natives as word had spread about the generosity of the visitors in this inn and many of them had taken advantage of the situation, though now it was getting quieter. It was true that the Calie had a tendency to leave people with server hang overs in their wake and this seemed to be likely to be true here.
It was also true that it was not only the calie that had put drinks behind the bar (even though they had provided seven additional bottles of inteerie whiskey that seemed to be a hit with the locals...well the ones that might remember what the heck they were drinking the night before, which was likely to be about half of them), a few of the local merchants were also in a generous mood. Those were the ones that had stuck a deal with the quartermaster of the HMS Raven. The ship had been at sea for months and the quartermaster had been on the look out for fresh food, not that the crew was at risk of staving it was that for moral purposes fresh meat and produce was always good.
The merchants had welcomed the marries as equals when they had tracked them down but had become confused when they had called back to the ship to get the OK on the deal. Then shortly after a feline Leefen had arrived with two more Saeie marries as escorts (None of the marries were in uniform or armed). They had become even more confused when it became apparent that the feline was the one giving the orders but when it became clear that she was the one with the money the cultural differences seemed to ease a tad.
They had talked and it was clear that no single merchant could provide what the ship required so the quartermaster had suggested they formed a corporation to provide for larger customers as it would be easier for them. A few hours after the Calie party had left the the four merchants arrived at the ship to confirm that they could provide what was requested in the time period required. It would appear that the Calie influence was beginning to appear in states of Lupinus but as usual it was not intensional, the states of Lupinus now had one of it's first corporations. The group of merchants were in a booth at the side of the bar toasting their new found business relationship as directors of the corporation. One of the felines on board had told them how these things worked 'back home' and realizing that the felines from the ship were of a different kind, had taken their suggestions.
Barron leck smiles and says "I see no reason not to start talks now, but you are dry" and raises his hand to get the bar furs attention. Two flagons of the local ale and two shot glasses of inteerie whiskey are delivered at speed. The inn keeper wanted repeat custom from a well paying customer like him.
Leck raises his shot glass and says loudly "Slangiagan, To friendship and mutual benefit"
A cheers goes up from the rather well oiled crowd.
(Not inteerie whiskey tends to leave the first time drinker gasping for breath and quite often on the floor. It's a tad strong.)
--- Back in Cal there was a meeting of staff to discuss the intelligence they had acquired. The Calie were not used to not knowing what other nations had as most were quite willing to posture and show off their tech (the rest the officially non-existent calie intelligence services had found out about). The Calie were one of the few that never advertised what their true capabilities were, when possible (even they couldn't hide their super carriers, but they had managed to hide two similar sized ships (hiding things was something they were very good at)).
Sea lord Za says "What every those things were, they must be weapons either that or they have some very odd ceremonial practices."
War lord Inca smiles "No they were weapons they were quickly deployed and quickly taken away. If I had a secret weapons system I would do the same."
Za replies "What kind of weapons do you think they are?"
"Well the lack of an obvious supply train suggests energy weapons rather than projectile weapons, but more than that I can't really say."
Air Lord Ja interjects "From the readings we have got from the angle I reckon they are crystalline based, I believe the teuie experimented with them."
"Did they ever get them to work" inca asks.
"There is a large crater in the teuie desert that suggests they had some sort of success"
"Why didn't they deploy it?"
"Well the crater is where the research lab was"
"Ah, so how do you think they got it?"
"Dumb luck, and artifact from the past, who knows. Lets be honest it's not really our department, but I have a feeling that certain people will be busily working in that part of the world until we find out."
---
Deep in a little used sub-basement Alpha (the head of the officially non-existent callie intelligence service was holding a meeting) "What in the goddesses name is it that the Lupinus have?" she asks.
"Not a clue it totally left fielded us and we still don't have a network there yet." Epsilon (Head of foreign intelligence) replied.
"Do you have an ETA on when you might be able to find out?"
"Well they do use slaves so if they have access to the tech it shouldn't take long. But I don't see them as a direct threat so I would think months rather than weeks."
Alpha nods.
|
|
|
Post by miokalia on May 26, 2007 21:16:12 GMT -5
(Meanwhile, back home)
"In this business, little details like this are everything.", said Sampson Tycho, a non-feathered allosaurus. One of the NCAB officers under Dr. Dosh. He was looking over a fuzzy output from a satellite.
"Areas like that aren't supposed to produce charge pits like that.
They just don't. And anything naturally occouring would have been known by now.
I don't know what it is, maybe they made some huge brass sculpture and did so with just the right number of atoms...
All we have is this little pit on the print-out from one of the quomsats. No telling what it is.", said Ning, a feline technician.
"If this even so much as diverts one of the co-ax flights off course by 15 degrees... This is going to be a national security risk, right?
Can we compare this against time?", asked Telouse, another technician, a crocodile.
"It appears, and disappears. This is not natural. It's too small to be an unregistered aircraft making a jump. It's too periodic to be a naturally occouring event It's too large a change to be weather-induced phenomena. It's too imprecise to be intentional.
Any ideas.", asked Tycho.
"I surmize it may be unintentional. This was induced by something else. Some other kind of event.
There is some other device perhaps which induced this spot on our print-out.", said Ning.
"Its probably nothing. Just the resonance of something natural and benign.", said Telouse.
"This isn't noise. In 35 years of doing this, there has always been something that correlates with every spot like this that I've investigated. And there are a lot of spots we used to never investigate before the Arx Incident a few months ago.
BUT, since then, we're supposed to report every spot.", said Tycho.
"Passing over the nation with one of the Quomsats for a higher-detail image may reveal the source of the pit.
That way, we'll know if someone has parked one of our commercial jets there, or if it's just some big hunk of metal in the right place, at the right time, with the right molecular mass.", said Ning.
"It's probably just some resonance from something trivial.", said Telouse.
"And what if it isn't? What if it's something like the experiment in Arx? Then lives are in danger. Bring QS#24 over into geosynch. Do it on the computer... now", said Tycho.
Telouse brought the satellite into geosynch as Tycho said, and the image progressively became more and more detailed as time elapsed.
"This place has really bad hooks.", commented Ning.
"They've had a lot of civil war, I'm sure thinking about stuff like that is the last thing they've been concerned with.", said Telouse.
"Reset the image and go again. That country can't be that dense.
What depth is this at?", asked Tycho.
"11.6 Dorons/Coloumb*Meter", said Telouse.
"What is this? The event-horizon of a black hole?", asked Tycho, "This is like, way the hell up there on the spectrum"
"Device reset. Capturing again.", said Telouse.
After about 20 minutes Tycho said, "Okay, all these little spots are appearing here. These aren't points, this is cathodization on the film. Because apparently this isn't a point, but rather a cloud.
This is induction. I don't know what caused it, but this is an induced field. It's a side-effect of some energy build-up of an unconventional nature. Hardly something I'd imagine they'd have."
Ning said, "There is a Calie boat in the area, the HMS Raven. Could it be something of theirs?"
"The Calie wouldn't be doing something like this. Their equipment would be much cleaner than this. This is the result of something different. What made this may not even be aware of the pucon cloud, or maybe they're using it.
I highly doubt it, the folks there are thousands of years at the very least from doing anything with pucons or Doron physics. It's something else.", said Tycho.
"We should call Cal and see if they have anything about it.", said Telouse.
"Indeed.", said Tycho picking up a phone to route through the SOTO intelligence service.
|
|
|
Post by Santus D Lupinus on May 27, 2007 6:44:15 GMT -5
Taking a huge swig of whiskey and sitting down with a bit of a swing, the Worthy Lupine says: "I may not be able to do many things, but at least I can hold meh liquor. (*hic) Shall we get on with the negotiations then?" said he with a smile. -- Shutting down the Great secret weapon, as per orders of Agnew, the weapon on the mountain released its charge fully, dissipating it in the air. A large field of magnetic flux generated a false image of the mountain to anything flying overhead, as the weapon switched to defense mode once again. -- (Long ago, the Lupine nation had run all of the cats off of the mountain. And that is how it has always stayed.)
|
|
|
Post by Kingdoms of Cal on Jun 1, 2007 15:07:38 GMT -5
Baron Leck was a little surprised, inteerie whiskey usually left the drinker in a mess, he sniffed his glass checking if it had been watered down. It didn't appear to have been, then he prepared himself and necked back the shot in a one. He shook his head violently, but regained his composure.
He then said "Shall we get the unpleasant stuff out the way?
The fact you have slavery will not go down well back home, but strictly speaking it is not illegal there, it has never existed so we have never banned it. It is simply a non-recognized contract so any slave entering Calie controlled territory or those of one of our protectorates and/or colonies is ,effectively, freed. With our sentience rights laws we will grant them asylum and citizenship should they ask. But the Calie government is non-interventionist so what you do here really is not our concern.
But to more pleasant matters, we would like to normalize relations with you. This will involve an exchange of ambassadors and the setting up of embassies with the usual state off affairs that the embassy and it's grounds are officially part of the nation that possesses it.
I assume you have no problem with this?"
The Worthy Lupine looks like he was about to say something but Leck continued "As a young nation with, as it appears, few friends I believe access to our financial market would be helpful to access foreign currency. I believe our financial institutions will be willing to help should you require loans and such, but I doubt you will, but if you do our privacy laws are quite strong, so no one need know. Cal, as a government rarely gives direct aid.
Just as a mater of interest is your currency actually based on trading slave or is it just a floating currency like ours. If it is the former the Calie corporations will have trouble dealing in it but even then if you trade using Meeps they will probably come on board once we give them the go ahead."
|
|
|
Post by Santus D Lupinus on Jun 5, 2007 14:05:37 GMT -5
The Worthy one proclaimed mildly eloquently: "While our nation has no problem with the ambassador exchange and the establishment of foreign embassies, we may have to establish a set of systems for the emigration and immigration of our people." *licks his lips and twitches an ear, his head bobbing a tad* "It seems we may need to keep our people from taking slaves with them. But as for now, we can't have anyone coming into our country at all, as our people are still coming to terms with the existence of other nations outside of our span of perception. We already had to deal with some problems with other species in the past, and it would be beneficial if our nations could exchange celebrities, perhaps have some go to and fro to re-assure the people of my nation as time goes on. In the mean time, please don't try to demonstrate any military power in our waters, or fish there, as people are a tad touchy on it, and we will have to respond in full. Sad, I know, but a necessary precaution to re-assure the people of our new nation.
|
|
|
Post by Kingdoms of Cal on Jun 5, 2007 18:04:10 GMT -5
Leck smiles "I my self am not from one of the more powerful forces that crated the commonwealth and I think I understand where you are coming from.
The commonwealth has no interest in taking the food from your mouth or starting a fight, we know what fighting causes having done so between our self for more years than any of us care to remember. As for emigration and immigration that is an internal matter for your people and not of our government's concern, as ours are none of yours.
We simply wish to offer trade links to you, nothing more and nothing less. We believe you not to be a Luddite nation so perhaps you might be interested in our commercial tech and other such things as improvement of your infrastructure?
The best way to reassure a people is to provide them with concrete proof that trade is a good thing.
Look about you, these people have forgotten that they have a battleship in their port they just know that they made them feel better. OK they may not tomorrow but they know we are no threat.
Even your merchants are happy." Leck ends tipping his glass to the small group of merchants.
|
|
|
Post by Santus D Lupinus on Jun 6, 2007 4:46:19 GMT -5
Nodding slightly, the Worthy one says: "Our nation would greatly appreciate any help other nations can give in improving our infrastructure, although our technology is developing rather quickly (At this point, his voice is raised in a howl-like shout over the noise of a passing steamship). And yes, that is a good idea, but we also need to avoid culture shock as much as possible."
|
|
|
Post by miokalia on Jun 6, 2007 12:34:46 GMT -5
(At the delegations accomodations)
"Time to see what the damage is", said Plumaas looking around, closing the curtains over the window and unrolling her computer. "10,000", she said.
"10,000 for what? Did you buy a car?", asked Chon.
"I've lost 10K in Wh because of the protests. A lot of people disapprove of my being here", she said, "So I'm freezing that account".
Chon opened a pouch full of somewhat shiney fluids, and a syringe and needle.
"There are others ways to treat diabetes, Chon", said Plumaas
"Not diabetes. Cancer. You're foretunate you aren't genetically similar to anyone here. I am, and canine cancer is extremely communicable. So I have to take one of these everyday.", he said.
"And in a nation with different health standards. I see. That's pretty hardcore of a needle though", she said.
Chon found the small plastic tube sticking out of his arm and inserted the needle in about an inch and a half.
"Catching cancer from purebreds may be as easy as catching the common cold.", he said.
"But you aren't like that.", said Plumaas.
"No, but it's still possible. I'm not taking any risks.", said Chon, putting a gauze over the hole.
"I wonder why they are separating us from the Calie", said Plumaas, reading some emails.
Wray asked, "You're getting sat service here?"
"Yes, apparently even here.", she said.
"I think they are attempting to mitigate influence.", said Chon. "Keeping our delegations separate makes us easier to manage."
"I assume they are quite privy to what is going on.", said Wray.
"Where's Notiona?", asked Chon.
|
|
|
Post by Killer Zoids on Jun 6, 2007 21:05:41 GMT -5
Notiona, a pure bred wolf, almost indistinguishable from the locals, made her way to the door. She did not look like her chipper self. Her eyes weren't quite as bright, her face was drawn and she was shivering cold. The only problem was, it was in the high 80s (F) outside.
She was dizzy, disoriented and cold. Her nose was not wet.
She went over to the table in the kitchenette and sat down, putting her muzzle in her arms, crouching over the table.
Chon perked up at the sight, and asked, "Notiona, are you all right?"
His eyebrows were twitching much the way a canine's would in thought.
She rolled over to look at him, and just barely was able to say, "No, I'm okay," before she fainted.
|
|
|
Post by miokalia on Jun 6, 2007 23:14:21 GMT -5
"Wray", yelled Chon.
Wray came over and took a look at the sight and said, "Give her a half dose of what you take"
"Why not a full one", asked Chon.
"Because A full dose could kill her.", said Wray.
"What's going on here?", asked Plumaas.
"Notiona seems to have contracted a regional ailment perhaps. Who knows. She's running a fever and we don't have the diagnostic tools to determine what it is immediately.", said Wray.
Chon administered a half dose of the substance he was using. Nothing happened.
"Wray this isn't just some kind of common ailment", said Chon, "She's not breathing".
Wray took her pulse and then told Plumaas, "Call the Palahniuk to get the Tubewing over here."
Plumaas opened her cell phone and made the call.
Wray pierced her skin a bit with his claws and began moving them around in a shallow wound. He finally stopped and said. "Get back".
He then produced a high-powered pulse acting as a defibulator He then began issuing smaller ones to keep her heart going.
"She will be fine in a while, though she will need to be patched up. This is a minor heart attack due to what I think may be a vascular papilloma in the vessels feeding the heart. I beleive she had a slight condition before she arrived here, and perhaps exposure to a reletively minor regional pathogen may have aggervated it.
Like how Smallpox was less deadly to Europe than in other places. Same thing.
Except I conjecture that the pathogen is a kind of Lipolomavirus."
Chon looked at his set of viles and said, "That's exactly what this is supposed to prevent. Can it treat it?"
"It can reduce it, she will have to be treated in a few weeks with microgranule-infrared therapy.
But if it metastasizes earlier, we're going to have to do an operation and she might have to start having sections of tissue replaced over time.", said Wray.
Chon was speechless. Wray removed his claws from her, and removed a large syringe from the first aid kit and injected it straight into her heart.
She sat up in an instant, panting. Then she looked down and screeched. Wray removed the syringe and applied bandages.
"OMG WTF", she said.
"You just had a minor heart attack.", said Wray.
"I knew that soylent yellow was bad for me", said Notiona.
"Actually I think it's part of a different problem. You may have caught a virus here, one which folks from your region have not acquired a resistence to.", said Wray. "You can cancel the Tubewing. She will be fine."
Plumaas was still on the phone, reporting the accident and reported the new news.
"No dying.", said Chon in a pseudo authoritative manner. They then kissed for about a minute.
|
|
|
Post by Santus D Lupinus on Jun 7, 2007 5:03:14 GMT -5
Bursting in through the doors with complete disregard for the foreign concept of privacy, the Great Lupinus burst through the sweet of the mikokalian emissaries. Walking past, he sat down at a chair, followed by a contingent of servants. With a sincere and somewhat happy look on his face, the Great One asked: "How is everyone? Are you all happy with your accommodations?"
|
|
|
Post by Kingdoms of Cal on Jun 8, 2007 16:59:52 GMT -5
Baron Leck smile and takes a good swig of ale "I can not promise how things will go but our trainworks have been given a large investment so they are looking at a test case and I suspect you fit the bill
Your electrical system needs work but they are apparently working on an independent system for some reason. So I think that they are likely to provide you with a new fast passenger and heavy freight network. They will run under your livery rather than Calie colours. They seem unconcerned about the tech leaking.
We can also get offshore wind farms running and pump storage systems running. We can't guarantee no one enters your nation but I think it can be minimized.
Oh yeah and if you want foreign currency talk to the telecos. They are likely to pay you for access to a virgin market and upgrade your telephone network while they're at it in exchange for licenses to some of your EM spectrum and permission to sell their mobile comms here."
Leck drinks a little more ale.
"Most of the engineers are Lupine or Vulpine but there are one or two felines. Can you grantee your protection of those? A mis-understanding coud become very messy very fast.
But none of this will be free, but we are always on the look out for raw materials, especially minerals."
--- Though Cal lacked an intelligence network in Lupinus, in other parts of the world it was quite well aware of what was going on.
A message is sent to both other nations, it reads: "The HMS raven has some fairly good medical facilities and the Fire fleet will be passing by soon. The Fire fleet carries full medical facilities and Cal will offer them openly.
We just thought this information to be pertinent and the helicopter on the HMS raven is on alert as usual."
--- The calie by the SOTO treaty agreement release all of thier official inteligence to interested parties.
|
|
|
Post by miokalia on Jun 10, 2007 20:25:58 GMT -5
Plumaas got another call on the phone from the Palahniuk. The tube wing was coming anyway.
"Pardon, because this was a health incident, a paramedic team is being dispatched from the carrier MZS Palahniuk. They also say that an additional small delegation is being sent as per request from the senate and the office of the president.
They'll be here in the morning.", she said to Lupinus.
Plumaas listened to the phone some more for a short time,
"I apologize, but this is a matter of policy. Notiona may probably be able to stay here and finish the visit as planned, but because she is under our trust and care, we are required by policy to have her examined by paramedic professionals. KZ has been informed of the accident and her condition", she said.
She listened for another short time and then said, "Due to the urgency of this matter, the tubewing will need to land as close to us as possible."
----
After the paramedics took Notiona into the small aircraft, Two individuals decended from the steps of the plane. Andertol went straight up to Plumaas and began conversing with her entirely in Kohtohkhan. "You are dismissed from this mission. You did what I expected you to, but diplomatically this is going to require more power than you can wield.", he said.
"I'm not being fired am I?", she asked
"No, not at all. Its just this is a matter of more sensitivity than previously expected. And it was decided by the senate that I personally visit.", he said, "Plumaas, you will be going home. Pei-Ling and I will be taking over."
Andertol was about 6' 8", a browish-orange allosaurus with a much larger nose than Plumaas. He also had no feathers.
Pei Ling decended from the plane. She was a greyish-brown tabby feline. It was evident that she was of very mixed breed (as most cats in Miokalia are), From the shape of her face, it was evident that she even had some Calie Leefen family. She wore all black, a black jacket, a black fishnet shirt beneath and black scarf along with tall black boots.
She didn't speak.
Andertol on the other hand did.
"Pardon our landing on such short notice, I'll be frank with you, the senate and upper house back home was in a hurry to get us here.", he said to Lupinus, "I am secretariat of state Hiyke Andertol and this is Pei Ling Yahesikya we will be finishing the remainder of this visit along with Wray"
Chon nodded at Pei Ling and then he said, "Well that's one way to directly address the pink elephant in the room, as the saying goes."
As the commotion settled, Andertol said, "I'm going to warn you ahead of time, I am a very frank and up-front person. To put it simply, if you want to get any form of aid and diplomatic anything with Miokalia, I am your best bet."
|
|