First Contact

Chapter 804: Ultimis Diebus Hominum

The two biggest differences between reality and fiction are the following:

1) Reality is allowed to have plot holes, fiction isn't

2) Fiction has to make sense, reality doesn't.

Once you realize these two fact, and how fundemental they are to reality, you are on the first step of the Madness of the Lemurs. - Sleemas the Bold, Savashan Security Officer

The one eyed Terran stared out of the video screen, a light amber glow behind the eyepatch.

"Once the androids were fielded with what the Council of Eternity viewed as mil-spec gear, I was pretty busy engaging their ships at line of sight. Since we were on the inner layer of a multi-layered Dyson Sphere, and I was piloting a Ringbreaker, I was engaging them entire light seconds beyond their own weaponry," the male was saying. "Things were pretty busy, with Lady Keena taking over the Primary World Engine and the ancillary systems, Vuxten and the Detainee doing whatever they were doing, and Menhit ripping apart the Screaming Ones that Sam-UL was hitting our lines with. Legion was scattered across the insides of the layers as well as above Alpha Layer, using the Entropic Fleet to destroy any craft that were launched," he shook his head and took a drink of a bottle of water. "Herod was, at the time, keeping Sam-UL occupied while Peter finished the override patch that instead of garbage collection or recycle bin action, any SUDS files were put in cold storage or shifted to the Catastrophic Event Recovery System."

A General reached out and paused the screen then looked at the conference table.

The majority of the seats were only filled due to Augmented Reality Systems, holograms of Intelligence Agency representatives, Sector Commanders, and people who just appeared as featureless mannequins without any labeling.

The General picked up a glass of water and sipped at it, waiting a few seconds for everyone to get on the same page.

"We've hit the point where we're just repeating questions or asking for clarifications on subjects that were already clarified for us," the General said. He looked out across the table, reaching up to his head to smooth the spines on his head that anxiety had slightly raised.

"An entire war happened and we had no idea," an Admiral said, only identified by a thirty-two alphanumeric code. The Admiral shook his head. "It explains what happened to Terran Descent Humanity, however."

The gathered officers, agents, and representatives all nodded.

One of the mannequins, labeled "Telkan Intelligence Services" signaled and the General nodded. The Mannequin straightened up.

"The defeat of the Council of Eternity coincided with the vanishing of the Confederate Senate. At that time the Telkan Intelligence Services were already investigating the fact that the Telkan representative to the Senate was not an existing Telkan but was, instead, an amalgamation made to seem familiar to the Telkan viewing it."

The mannequin made a motion, showing the wreckage of three buildings on the holo-emitter in front of it.

"Just a short time prior, during the investigation, Telken Intelligence Services headquarters, the System Director headquarters, and the home of the System Director were all directly attacked by what was later determined to be androids," the mannequin stated. "At that time, the investigation was moved to high security, in an orbital intelligence analysis facility."

The holoemitter changed to show a space station self-destructing.

"During the time period estimation for Galactic Standard Time the space station was attacked and destroyed," the mannequin said. "By forces unknown."

The mannequin dismissed the holograms.

"The Council of Eternity being exposed has led us to belief that the amalgamation of the Telkan Senate Representative was a creation of the Council of Eternity for reasons unknown beyond the accumulation of power," the mannequin stated. It signaled that it was finished.

Another mannequin flashed and the General nodded.

The voice was deep, with the slight bellows sound of a Lanaktallan. "Executor Intelligence and Enforcement Services had, at the time of the War in Heaven, active agents engaged in the protection and security of the Terran Diplomatic Services Plenipotentiary Team," the mannequin said.

"During a routine investigation by agents we, at this time, are unwilling to disclose, a data-transfer point was discovered. This discovery led to persons unknown using nanoforges and creation engines to print out androids, which chased our assets, inflicting a high loss of civilian life in the process," the mannequin stated. "It was determine by after action investigation that the orders came from GalNet and SolNet backbone systems, the signal and the data stream becoming lost in the larger stream."

It paused for a moment.

"At the time it occurred, it was, initially, mistakenly identified as one of the Terran Dead Hand Systems. However, with the testimony of assets, we began to believe that it was another party who had been disrupting diplomatic efforts and who had resorted to naked force," the mannequin said. "Data provided by Lord Knight Casey has managed to fill in the gaps," the mannequin gave the appearance of leaning back. "It is the Executor Intelligence and Enforcement Agency's belief that the Council of Eternity was behind the attacks in one final attempt to disrupt the Council-Confederate peace process and put both nations back to war. For what purpose remains unknown."

The mannequin went still.

There was a long silence.

"The question is now, what changes with all of this information? We know why the Terrans are all gone, but the real question is: can they be brought back?" a mannequin asked.

All faces turned to the mannequin with Confederate Military Intelligence Services.

The mannequin flashed twice to signify that it was going to speak.

"The Confederacy exists, whether or not we lose a member, even as important a member as the Terrans," the mannequin stated. "From the sounds of Lance Corporal Casey's testimony and the hearsay about what the person tentatively and unverifiably identified as Chromium Saint Peter, who is in charge of the SUDS project, it appears that until this 'queue' is cleared, the system is still 'first come first serve' with processing."

The mannequin paused a moment.

"Which means, several hundred trillion SUDS records remain to be processed, from a wide variety of species, some of which are now extinct due to warfare," the mannequin said. "Even if the rate of recover is several million an hour, and we have no figures for how fast the dead are being moved from cold storage, through the recovery systems, to the rebirth queue, we are looking at over a thousand years before the system even reaches those who have died during the three thousand years of the Confederacy."

That got some quiet exclamations of shock.

"The human race has an annual growth rate of 1.1% if no other factors move in, with a life expectancy, barring disease, injury, or bad luck, of roughly 550 years," the mannequin stated.

That got some shock from some of the Council species present.

"Fortunately for the galaxy at large, humanity has killed more humans than any other outside factor in its entire history," the mannequin said. "Xenospecies and disasters have killed less than 10% of the amount of humans that other humans have killed in the same time span. It is one of the reasons that many xenospecies have determined that if the humans are not beaten, militarily, within a twenty year period, that the humans will emerge victorious as birth rates can quintuple during war times, unlike other species."

Again, there were exclamations of shock.

"That means, to put it bluntly, there is a vast numbers of just humans in the system. From Lance Corporal Casey's testimony, we know they system also contains billions, perhaps trillions, of members of other xenospecies," the mannequin stated. "Especially in light of a critical piece of testimony regarding the function of the system."

There was silence a moment.

"What piece of testimony is that?" the Saurian Compact Intelligence Agency's mannequin asked.

"That all the system actually relied on was the datalink and a connection to SolNet and SoulNet, which are the deep level backbone architecture of GalNet. The SUDS stack was experimental military hardware," the mannequin stated. "Which means, right this second, if we were all to die suddenly, we could reconvene this meeting, to a being, in the SUDS waiting room."

That brought nothing but silence.

"Is there any way to turn it off?" someone asked. They had no header and were just a mannequin.

The General shook his head. "From what Lord Knight Casey was saying, the system is barely holding together as it is. Any attempt to segregate beings or species from it would probably cause a complete crash at worst or deleting the records of those species at best."

Again, a long silence.

The Mantid Intelligence Agency's avatar pulsed and the General nodded.

"When is Casey's next debriefing? How long will we have to come up with questions regarding the data we have so far?" the avatar asked.

"Seventy-two hours," the General said.

Everyone nodded.

"With that, let's disperse, go over the new data, and determine what questions we want to ask at the next debriefing. As stated prior, each of you are allowed five questions," the General stated.

With that, each of the icons vanished, leaving only the General, two Admirals, and a single Gray Girl. The General looked at the Gray Girl.

"Will Casey be willing to do another briefing?" the General asked.

The Gray Girl shrugged. "Unknown at this time."

"What is your opinion on all of this?" the General asked her.

She closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them, she looked tired.

"That this is not the end of days as so many fear," she stated. "That even if this is the final days of Terran Descent Humanity, it is the beginning of something much bigger."

The General frowned.

"Like what?" one of the two Admiral asked.

The Gray Girl shrugged, lifting her mirrorshades from where they had been hanging from her pocket. She put them on and looked at the General and two Admirals.

"We do not know," she stated, her voice flat and emotionless. "Chromium Saint Peter has been revealed, the Digital Omnimessiah walks the universe once more, the Biological Apostles have gathered together with new brothers and sisters," she stated. The lights seemed to dim and shadows filled the corners and empty spaces. "Too many believe that this is the end of Terran Descent Humanity, and perhaps they are right. However, my sisters and I believe that it is just the beginning of something else. Something that may not be revealed until long after all of us have been forgotten and our works turned to dust on the stellar winds."

The General swallowed. "What do you think it is the beginning of?"

The Gray Girl shrugged. "Whatever it is, it is the designs of the malevolent universe, which we undoubtedly could not comprehend," she tugged on her sleeves, her cufflinks glittering in the dim light. "Besides, despite that opinion of everyone else, humans are not extinct."

"There are less than three thousand known humans remaining," the other Admiral said quietly.

Again, the Gray Girl shrugged. "There is certain datapoints regarding Terran Descent Humanity, humans, Terrans, Earthlings, whatever you want to call them, that most xenospecies do not understand."

The silence stretched out until the first Admital cleared his throat. "What datapoints?"

The Gray Girl was silent another long moment. Just when the General was about to repeat the Admiral's question, she spoke. "To completely repopulate, with a base stable gene lineage as managed by a genetic diversity system, even a crude one of just hand written records, a few thousand years would have that two thousand in the hundred of millions even with a growth rate of 1.025%."

She shifted slightly, looking at the three officers. "While the 50/500 grouping is not optimal, forty thousand is optimal, those two thousand five hundred humans could repopulate fairly quickly."

"What about xenocide depression and apathy?" the Admiral asked.

The Gray Girl shook her head. "Humanity's brain is wired to breed in times of hardship. They will not give in nor surrender," she gave a slight smile. "With genetic engineering tools available, the possibility of successfully repopulating somewhere none of us know about is possible with the absolute bare minimum, which would be in line with human origin legends."

The General frowned. "Just two? The second generation would be entirely sterile."

The Gray Girl shook her head. "No. Additionally, modern genetic engineering would allow that breeding pair to insert gene sequences to prevent birth defects, recessive genes, and other genetic maladies," again with the faint smile. "And, if there is a total disaster, well..."

She let it hang for a long moment, then put her hand on her stomach.

"Parthenogenesis genetic alteration has been possible since before the Glassing," the Gray Girl said. Her smile got a bit more noticeable and slightly smug. "Humanity has always ensured that they will survive, to lengths that none of you could even possibly imagine. One human female, by herself, with a single nanophage injection, could repopulate the human race with enough numbers that in a thousand years..."

Again, she let it hang.

"Millions of enraged, screaming in bloodlust, earthlings would erupt into space, all bellowing for revenge," she smiled widely then went still, her expression draining away.

One of the Admirals swallowed then shook his head. "That long and surely the desire for revenge would be lost."

The Gray Girl smiled again. "Sir," she said softly. "There have been blood feuds among ancient Terrans that persist even today. Blood feuds established in the Bronze or Iron Age that could erupt between those two groups even now," she shook her head, almost sadly. "Those who have sworn that blood feud could tell you what shade of blue the sky was the day of the insult."

She looked at each of them. "A thousand years? Ten thousand? No, if anything, the ore of revenge would have been smelted and forged into a million swords to wreak terrible vengeance," she turned and walked toward the door, which opened automatically.

She paused, for just a moment.

"The Atrekna have sorely wounded humanity," she said. She smiled, a wide smile that showed more teeth than should have been possible. "But our hands are around their throats and there is room in this grave for them."

The door shut behind her.

The General shook his head and looked at the two Admirals. "Do you believe that?"

The two Admirals looked at one another, then at the General.

As one, they nodded.