Chapter 4: Painful Memories
The traders in the Ensmars system welcomed the Vool with open arms. For the first time since their arrival, Gugaana and a few of his closest advisors were able to leave the fleet. Hoblorgh remained on board, despite wanting to accompany Gugaana, but in the end gave in and remained on board, with the excuse that he had to remain on board at all times, being the Admiral of the Fleet. Gugaana was welcomed by the leader of the traders, the Merchant-King, which was chosen every 25 years by a close group of the wealthiest merchants on the Enclave. They talked about both their situations where Gugaana heard about how the position of the Merchant-King was weakening and weakening for decades if not centuries due to the slow decline of the station due to a lack of intergalactic trade. The enclave of traders had been in the galaxy for millennia and once thrived on the rich trade which flowed through the galaxy and through the Ensmars system. However, a big war tore the galaxy in two, two centuries ago, and destroyed half of the empires which existed back then. The few young empires back then which survived went into a steady decline, and although superior to all the smaller and weaker empires which were now discovering FTL travel – like the Bloc of Genox – they were already in a slow decline for millennia. Young is a relative concept in galactic matters after all. When Gugaana asked how many of those empires survived, the Merchant-King replied that you could say that they were with 4, although 3 empires were further developed than other empires like the Bloc of Genox and thus technologically more advanced, but those were way younger than the 4 mentioned earlier. When Gugaana finally asked who they were and where to find them, the Merchant-King didn’t want to give away all the information he had, but he was willing to give him the coordinates of one of the 4 empires, which was situated to the north of the Ensmars system. But at a small price: if the Vool were willing to trade some minerals, energy and food with the enclave. He saw it as a way to strengthen his position, being the one which successfully made a trade deal with an empire for the first time in centuries would surely boost his respect among the elite merchant families. Gugaana after giving it some thought agreed and when some good trade deals were made and signed, the Vool left heading north.
It would take the Fleet around 11 jumps to reach this unknown Empire, which would take them around 1,5 year, maybe 2. Half-way through though, a first conflict arose between Gugaana and Hoblorgh, when the Fleet passed by a system called Yomon, where a Desert planet was present. Gugaana had after the first months appointed 3 scientists to lead the Republican Science Institute, each one to lead one field of research (Engineering, Biology and Physics). As the Fleet passed by the system, the scientists wanted to examine the Desert planet as it could potentially be a habitable planet, which could be interesting as the Vool were originally a Desert-preferenced species. Hoblorgh fully supported the scientists, but Gugaana did not want to waste any time – any delay meant discovering the xenos in this galaxy later and he didn’t want to loose any time idling around just for some minor bacteria that might live on the planet. Soon the two clashed and the debate got heated. The scientists kept quiet once they saw the debate escalating, as the issue turned not in a debate whether to halt or not, but in who was in command when it came to events like this. Hoblorgh said he was in control, as leader of the Fleet, whilst Gugaana claimed he had the power as he was the head of the state, with the Department of Science under his control as a government institution and not Hoblorgh. Hoblorgh despite being in the minority, locked himself in the command centre of the Fleet for 5 days in protest against Gugaana’s decision, but he just shrugged and said he could live with 5 days of delay, but not 50. Hoblorgh wouldn’t last that long without food or water though he added. And so when Hoblorgh ended his own exclusion he disgruntledly gave in and ordered the Fleet to continue its journey. This action severely discredited Hoblorgh among the public, and if it didn’t Gugaana made sure it would. Hoblorgh would start to gather his own small clique of loyal followers, though he would start uneven as Gugaana had been doing this since day 1. Still 7 years until election day…
A year later though, the Fleet finally entered the territory of the Empire the trader enclave had told them about. And the Vool were immediately stunned by what they encountered.
A ringworld, just like the Vool had one day lived on. Though completely ruined and only the frame still circling the bright white star, it was still an impressing sight to behold. As no real life was detected in this system, despite a military station present, the Fleet continued to the main system of the Empire.
There, the Vool discovered another ringworld, but this one was still completely functioning. A big military fleet was present along several fortresses above the ringworld, clearly superior in numbers though probably equal in technology. Nonetheless if the aliens in this system would turn on them, the Vool would probably be chanceless. There was no going back though. As the Fleet moved closer and closer to the ringworld, a small patrol fleet of four ships directed the Vool to the so-called centre of the ringworld. It would take a few weeks before any response came to the numerous communications the Vool sent out, and scans of the surface of the ringworld did not return anything, as if they blocked every signal coming from the Fleet. Until finally communications were established and the Fleet was no longer isolated. These were no aliens though…
“Public service announcement: All refugee status applications are handled at Central Processing. <NOTICE: Central Processing is currently experiencing a communications outage. Stand by while outage is resolved. Outage has persisted for <<ERROR: BUFFER OVERFLOW>> cycles.>”
Gugaana and the Vool on the Fleet were confused. Were they seen as refugees by these robots? Something was wrong with these robots though.
“We are not here to request asylum as refugees. We are the Vool, Galactic Nomads roaming around this galaxy.” Gugaana told the robot on his screen.
“So where are you here for Vool? <NOTICE: Beta Refuge is currently at capacity and not accepting additional refugees.>
“We have entered this galaxy a few years ago and are now searching for any intelligent lifeforms in this galaxy. We mean no harm.”
“We mean no harm either. We are here to protect you and other lesser species. We are the Ancient Caretakers. <NOTICE: Beta Refuge was meant to be fully dedicated to habitation units, but capacity issues forced a shift in focus towards cryogenics during construction.>
“Wait, does that mean cryopods like we had on the Fleet?” Gugaana wondered to himself.
“Scan those ringworld sections again, see if you can find any sign of this.” Gugaana ordered to one of his followers who were present in the same room as him.
Gugaana and the Custodian Computer, Horopter, talked some more but the robot always answered with a so-called notice at the end of his answer, sometimes even repeating older notices. Until Gugaana got the results of the scans: there were apparently millions of stasis chambers on the ringworlds with what appeared to be dozens of distinct biological species in it, but the chambers were ruined. No life came from those chambers. They were all dead. The Ancient Caretakers were taking care of corpses.
Not knowing what to think of this, Gugaana decided to be upfront and told Horopter about the scans of the Vool, but the answer was dismissive:
“ERROR, DOES NOT COMPUTE. WE TAKE UTMOST CARE OF ALL ALIEN SPECIES IN Mechazur Continuum. YOUR QUESTION WAS INSULTING. THERE ARE XENOS TO THE EAST OF US. IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE.”
Before the Vool could react, the transmissions were closed and no communications could be established again. Further scans did not bring back any results again, as the Ancient Caretakers blocked every signal again as when they arrived. There was no other option than to leave. And as they left heading east, the Vool watched the ruins of this once great Empire, debris littered everywhere around the system where once a sprawling ringworld would’ve been and hopefully living alien species. It reminded them of their situation, before the Exodus. But one thing they did know: they were not going back to such a fallen situation. They were awakened and would remain so.
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I had to be explicitly vague about the trader enclave and the "Merchant-King" hence no real name of the Enclave or the "Merchant-King" himself, they might not even be an oligarchy, as I did not seem to be able to open communications with them as I can with any other normal Empire. I don't know if having a science ship would help or not, I haven't played far enough to test this out but I hope so. I'm sorry for that, hope you don't mind.