Chapter 023: Discovery

The Frontier Rebellions were a period of unrest on the outer territories of the Solar Commonwealth, occurring concurrently to the Rebel Council’s ‘March to Terra’ campaign and directly preceding the Unification Wars. They lasted for decades and played an important role in the Solar Commonwealth’s downfall.

The Fourth and Fifth Expansion Phases expanded space inhabited by Mankind from ten to more than sixty space sectors. The Commonwealth’s refusal to allow the colonies to organize their own armies and fleets in fear of secessions (despite repeated raids from the Discord) inflamed the Frontier, especially as it was accompanied by an increasingly heavy-handed and authoritarian approach to extra-Core governments.

Soon Frontier rebels began laying siege to the overextended Commonwealth garrisons. Terrorist attacks and guerilla warfare of various independence movements (unofficially supported by the local governments) began wearing down the Commonwealth’s resources. Due to each fleet being essentially isolated amidst increasingly hostile worlds, the Commonwealth’s authority outside the Core crumbled. Desertions grew in scale, and soon entire fleets began selling themselves to the locals as mercenaries or becoming the backbone of their newly created navies.

The Commonwealth attempted to recall the Frontier Fleets thrice. The first call specified a list of ships to return to the Core to bolster the Commonwealth’s fleets fighting against the Rebel Council. However, less than thirty percent of the ships survived the trip without being destroyed, captured by Discord raiders or deserting. The second recall was supposed to be total. However, the remaining Frontier Fleets refused to return, seeing that journey as suicidal. The third recall remained unanswered, as there was no one left to answer it.

Encyclopedia Galactica

Book 7, page 156

***

“Well, that’s a complicated question… the answer for which is pretty obvious to everyone from modern times.” Tiriel cocked her head. “Schools mention it a lot in the history lessons.”

“Yeah.” Tendrik nodded. ”In short. There were three projects for the improvement of Humanity. Humanity 2.0 created modern baseline Humanity. It made them notably stronger and faster, much healthier, and also smarter, prettier, and more stable in behavior. It took centuries, but as far as we know pre-2.0 humanity is gone as a species.”

After some thought, Christopher concluded that this wasn’t surprising. He would be all for it if someone offered him such a genetic improvement. Too bad that the world was so damn realistic and only very basic and simple gene treatments - like hair colour - could be applied to yourself. Aside from these minor changes, you only got to see your descendants being really different.

“Yes, and then you got the Humanity 2.5 Project.” Tiriel continued. “Unlike its predecessor, it was no longer about ‘improving’ Mankind, as the main idea was to make it more diverse. It started with subspecies tailored towards high and low gravity worlds and went on from there. They are called ‘Variants’ because that’s what they are. Variants of the human species. Different in looks, internal biology, preferred habitats, and so on. But similar to humanity, regardless of all.”

“And then, finally, you got the Humanity 3.0 Project.” The fact that Tendrik was the one to speak about it, didn’t surprise Christopher at all. “Which was more of an exercise in how far it is possible to push Mankind as the last attempt to achieve the technological singularity. The general idea was that baseline humanity is, simply speaking, too stupid to comprehend more about science. And that if you’re able to change it into something more sophisticated, they’ll suddenly be able to comprehend the Wall of Faith mystery.”

Christopher remembered that part from what Chief Tiaa told him.

“Each transhuman Line was a different approach to the issue altogether.” Tendrik continued. “Mechanists, Robotics and Virtuals were to be a merger of man and machine in various ways. Immortals were an exercise in the idea of bodysurfing as a way to prolong the biological consciousness of humans ad infinitum. Overseers were a radical inquiry into a societal redefinition. Hivers were a test in the possibility of creating a hivemind, and Pure were humans gene modded into perfection. The general idea was to test each of these separate Lines on their own, see what worked best, and then assemble a completely new Mankind out of the best parts of them all.”

“But it didn’t happen, because of the War of Purity.” Tiriel interrupted him. “Hivers and Pure died to the last. And the other Lines lost their edge, if I may say so.”

Tendrik sighed and shrugged. “You can say so because that’s true.” He turned towards Christopher. “The Confederation’s transhumans are pretty much over-glorified cosplayers. A pale shadow of their War of Purity-era ancestors. The Mechanists of that time would have seen me as a hopeless biopurist. Even the Unforgiven ones.”

“I can scarcely believe that.” Christopher voiced his lack of belief in what he just heard. To him, Tendrik looked like anything but a biopurist.

“Back then the Mechanist Hierocracy had no tanks and fighters, only Mechanists who mechanized themselves to the point of becoming their equivalent.” Christopher stared at him in disbelief. “Chris, High Mechanist Adar FC-12, the head of the Unforgiven, de facto WAS a battleship. They were no longer separable, with what remained of biological Adar being a brain in a jar.”

“That’s...“ The very idea was crazy. And moved the future a lot closer to those more technologically extreme sci-fi stories.

“Actually, I think I never asked you about that.” Tiriel raised an eyebrow at Tendrik. “If you could do something like that, would you?”

The cyborg was surprised by this question. “This is certainly an interesting concept and I’m deeply fascinated by it.” Tendrik answered after a while. “How does it feel to be a machine to this degree? And all the things that you can do with such power... But it does seem pretty excessive.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Huh.” Tiriel stared at him for a while. “I think my estimations of your character were off the mark. And I let my personal anti-cybernetic bias influence the way I treated you. I apologize for that.”

Tendrik looked at her with shock written on his face. Christopher mirrored it. It was something neither of them expected to happen.

“So… you no longer dislike me?” Finally, the cyborg stuttered.

“I still dislike you for your cyber-transformationism, but the level of my dislike just dropped by at least fifty percent.” Tiriel stated flatly, bringing them both back to the ground. “As that’s how much your transformationism shrank in my eyes. I think that despite what I said earlier, I let the fact that you were a transhuman Mechanist cloud my judgment. Because of that, I apologize.” She bowed slightly to further accentuate her apology.

“Okaay…” Tendrik said. “Thank you, I guess.”

“So, was the idea of transhumanism being the key to the Wall of Faith correct?” Christopher said, both to interrupt the awkward silence and because he was genuinely curious.

“No, it wasn’t.” Tiriel answered while Tendrik shook his head. “It just made the crawling faster for a while. The Transhuman Alliance had much better technology during the War of Purity than baseline Mankind, but their progress still froze. Besides, Mankind caught up to them within the next two centuries. The post-transhuman Super Humanity would probably get slightly further and froze as well. Which means that Mankind is back to square one, but with lots of dead people.”

“The worst part?” Tendrik chuckled bitterly. “We don’t even have a clue why the Alliance went off the rails. The Day of Sorrows was so successful because nobody expected it. Several centuries have passed and we still have no clue as to why the War of Purity even happened.”

Christopher stared at him with his eyes wide open. Tiriel nodded solemnly.

“Sure, there were a lot of anti-transhuman sentiments before it.” Tendrik continued. “One of the genetic warlords, by the name of Purifier, launched an all-out genocidal crusade against the Mechanist Hierocracy. There were also many less-violent groups around. However, the number of people signing for transhuman upgrades and becoming Mechanists or Virtuals was steadily going through the roof for more than twenty years. Someone counted that if the speed would remain steady, everyone would have been transhuman by 2400.”

“Well, it’s quite refreshing that superhumans are still as prone to stupid decisions as normal humans.” Tiriel replied. “Get some of that ‘I’m beyond human’ exceptionalism, add some people saying that you’re not that good, superior technology and overwhelming military power and you get a genocide.”

“Yeah, that works. Now, enough of this depressive stuff. Who is fighting who?” Tendrik asked while opening the character selection scene in the Longest War.

***

Despite Commander Drathari being an exec of the ship, getting to meet Chief Petty Officer Sistonen wasn’t easy. In normal circumstances, they would have regularly scheduled meetings due to the exec being responsible for the day to day operations of the ship. However, things on the Echo weren’t normal.

Captain Keller was de facto both the Captain and exec of the ship. Lena was more of his deputy and a trainee. The situation was doubly complicated because she wanted to avoid the Captain’s attention.

In the end, she had no other option than to go for a direct confrontation. Though not without preparing a sufficient cover.

She invited Tiaa Sistonen to her quarters for a talk through the commplants. Since Lena chose the moment when Chief Petty was off duty, the catwoman arrived only two hours later. A reasonable time for a non-official invite.

Tiaa stepped through the entrance and looked around, obviously checking the place out. She was probably underwhelmed. As a Virtual, Lena’s real-world needs were rather limited in scope. Her living room lacked any sort of entertainment. No display to watch films, no books to read. No place tailored for her hobby, for all her hobbies took place in cyberspace.

The only reason she kept that room was in case someone came over for a visit. Cabinets and a fridge with various refreshments - alcohol and other drinks, cigarettes and cigars, even some drugs that were so lightweight the Captain was ok with their presence on his ship. She had some holographic displays installed, which decorated the walls with various art pieces and trophies from the Gates of Infinity. But she had no use for any of those things on her own.

“Commander.” Tiaa nodded to her. Lena responded by pointing towards a chair on the other side of the table.

“I’m sorry about calling you.” Lena said after the catwoman sat. “Tea? Coffee? Wine?” Tiaa shook her head.

“No, thank you.” Tiaa certainly didn’t feel happy with having this talk. “I assume that you didn’t invite me to talk about pleasantries, did you?”

“Straight to the subject, I see.” Lena nodded. “After seeing Captain Keller in action for a few days, I can’t help but admire him. However, I can’t find a lot about his past on the ship’s network, and he isn’t very talkative on the subject. I happened to hear from someone that you served with Keller on the ship he previously owned. I hoped you’d enlighten me a bit.”

Being a Virtual had its perks. The fully customizable cybernetic Doll that she currently controlled was among them. Her basic senses massively surpassed those available to organics. What’s more, the computer system of the Doll was rather sophisticated and she had invested a lot of money into making it even better.

Running a real-time analysis of Tiaa Sistonen’s reactions was easily achievable. To a naked eye, she was stalwartly scarce in reactions. But to Lena’s eyes, she was an open book. Noticing the surprisingly emotional reaction after she mentioned Captain Keller and the ‘admire him’ part was trivial.

Less than a second later she had an answer. 79% probability of Chief Tiaa Sistonen having romantic feelings towards Captain Keller.

That'll be useful. Too bad I can’t analyze people outside. I’m almost certain that both Innocent and Victor Fouquet know that I can do this. Neither of them seem particularly happy about me being a walking lie detector, as it sounds too much like something a spy would have. I sabotaged the cameras and bugs they placed in my quarters but outside it I’m vulnerable.

“I’m not sure why I should ‘enlighten’ you about things that Captain Keller doesn’t want to tell you.” Tiaa Sistonen replied with a stern voice.

Is the Captain aware of what she feels? He is too observant to not notice it, not when they are serving on one ship for so long. Is he taking advantage of it to keep her loyal? That sounds pretty black-hearted. Not like the Captain at all.

“Tiaa.” Lena leaned towards the catwoman. “I’m not, in any way, interested in snatching him.” The emotional read she got confirmed her earlier suspicion. “Yes, I saw the two of you on the bridge a few times. I’m not blind. I only want to know how such an outstanding tactician is commanding a heavy cruiser of the Guild instead of an entire fleet in one of the Confederation states?”

The question floated around for a few seconds. To Lena’s relief, Tiaa folded.

“Res Publica Christiana and Alliance for the Preservation of Democracy need their people in the Guild.” The analysis confirmed that she was honest. “As far as I know, both factions are ready to take him in whenever he gets tired of surveying the edge of the civilization. But that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.”

She probably didn’t see him pissing his pants during the last battle.

They spent close to twenty minutes discussing the Captain’s past. Tiaa got comfortable enough that she changed her earlier decision and asked for a tea. At last, Lena decided to storm the breach in the walls.

“I heard that the two of you were a part of the Halberde’s crew together.” Her emotional distress wasn’t strong enough to be visible by a normal human, but visible enough to her cybernetic eyes.

“Yes.” She shook her head. “We were tracking a Discordian raiding party. The Captain got a bit too inquisitive and went deep into the unexplored zone, as we were expecting a light cruiser. Instead, we’ve run into a heavy cruiser and two destroyers. Worst of all, they were…” She stared at Lena with an open mouth for a second. Then she closed it… and soon opened it again. “Ugh. Do you know about the TERROR BLACK?”

“The abyssal cults? Yes.” Though she learned about them recently and didn’t like what she had heard about them.

This broke Tiaa’s implant censorship.

“Well, these ships were of the Silent Sorrow. The first abyssal cult of them all.” And among the most horrible, according to the Captain’s words. “The Captain managed to crush one destroyer before the Glory of the Abyss, their heavy cruiser, had knocked us out. They had some archeotech electromagnetic pulse generation that they used to disable everything on Halberd and boarded us directly from their ship. We’d managed to repel the boarding party and launched a rather desperate attack on their heavy cruiser. Which, somehow, succeeded.”

Tiaa paused to take a sip of the tea. Lena consulted the analysis program and quickly confirmed that everything she just heard was the truth.

“It’s a morbid curiosity on my part, but how did that cruiser look inside?” For a moment, she was more interested in that than in Captains’ past.

“Like a fusion between a slaughterhouse and a hideout of some crazy serial killer and cannibal.” Tiaa replied. Her disgust and hatred towards the owners of that ship were too palpable for Lena to need analysis to confirm that those emotions were genuine. “I’m not going into details, because they sicken me even now. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t get to see the attack on the bridge.”

“You didn’t?” Lena was almost certain that Keller was taking part in that attack. Where else could that man be?

“Unfortunately.” Tiaa replied. “A few minutes before it I fell from a catwalk together with a cultist that jumped at me out of nowhere. It took me a while to kill him and find my way to the bridge. By the time I arrived, the Glory’s captain and his coven of Infernos were dead, but only Captain Keller survived the attack.”

Lena updated her estimations of Captain Keller’s combat capabilities. She had no idea how good the marines and crewmembers accompanying him were. But even with a squad of Visegradian knights, surviving such a battle was no easy task. Too many ricochets. He had to be good.

“We then used the Glory’s MAWs on the other destroyer.” Tiaa continued. “Once that was over, we locked the ship’s weaponry, activated its self-destruction sequence, and fled back to the Halberd. We picked up a few survivors along the way, which was enough to somehow bring our ship back to civilization. End of story.”

Lena was about to ask about something directly… but then she quickly reanalyzed the talk. She found another weakness to be exploited.

“And now the Captain is once again running deep into the unknown.” The Virtual said with a solemn tone. “Headfirst, and against superior enemy forces.”

Tiaa nodded. “Yes, it’s bothering me, too.” She replied. “Though this time we at least know the enemy is stronger. So I believe he has a plan.”

Judging from the look on his face during the last battle, Keller has everything but a plan. What is this man trying to achieve?

“Actually, I recently saw him acting weird.” For a second Lena was terrified that she went a step too far. Tiaa looked at her with suspicions on her face, but she didn’t violently explode with anger. There was time to fix this. “I think he is just as stressed with the situation as we are. Have you seen him acting strangely during your chase after the abyssals?”

This defused the situation. Tiaa didn’t arrive at the correct conclusion, and instead, she understood it as an innocent worry about the Captain.

“There was a thing.” The catwoman answered after a short while of thinking deeply. “I overheard the ship’s exec and the tactical officer talking about Keller repeatedly checking the sensor feed from their last journey through the Hyperspace as if searching for something. They assumed that he was checking if someone was following them, but they did seem to think that he was unexpectedly excessive in his search. One of them even joked that the Captain must be into the spiritomancy.”

Bingo! Not like that tells me anything, but it does indicate that there is a connection. Did he see the Curiosity back then, but didn’t tell anyone about it due to it being, well, the Curiosity? And if he saw it again and there is even a grain of truth in spiritomancy, what does that entail for our current expedition?

For now, time to continue the talk for a while. She mustn’t get suspicious.

***

“Report: It didn’t work.” Innocent decided to state the obvious.

The image on the main screen left no doubts. The Guild fleet’s last attempt to break from the half-encirclement didn’t succeed, as a group of Truthseekers ships with two battlecruisers moved in to intercept.

“I noticed, Innocent.” The Captain commented while rubbing his temples. “Thank you for worsening my headache.”

The Truthseekers main force remained on their tail. Their fast battleship possessed enough firepower to annihilate the entirety of the Echo’s fleet with ease and without suffering any damages. It was, however, fast only when compared to other battleships. Even with Seekers’ superior technology it was still only barely faster than the pursued fleet.

The battlecruisers operated on their own. There were two detached forces, each composed of two battlecruisers and some escort ships. Both of them caught up to the fleeing Echo fleet and kept following it on a parallel course. One to the left, one to the right. If the Guild forces tried to fly up, the left squadron moved up to block their way. When they tried to go down, the right squadron moved down to block their way.

“Shouldn’t they just move in and squash us? Even without the fast battleship, they have enough firepower to do that.” Lena commented. She didn’t like the situation. Nor their chances.

“Explaining Statement: I think they are trying to limit their potential casualties.” Innocent replied. “A pair of battlecruisers would destroy us, but we could once again do something unexpected and score some hits. The fast battleship is five times heavier than the battlecruisers, has three capital-ship grade armor layers instead of two cruiser grade, and at least a single super-heavy MAW. They will wait for it to catch up with us before attacking.”

“God I wish.” Captain sighed. When all eyes focused on him, he explained. “Truthseekers are extremely dangerous and very, very tricky. No hypothesis concerning them is too paranoid. If anything, you’re too straightforward and tame in your thinking.” He gazed at the screen for a while. “I spent a few hours checking details about that fast battleship and previous sightings of Seekers’ ships of this size. Things don’t add up.”

“Meaning?” Lena inquired, interrupting his thoughts.

“The fast battleship should be at least five percent faster.” He informed her. “His acceleration and deceleration is too slow. It should catch up to us by now.”

“Some thruster malfunction?” Lena suggested. Contrary to popular opinion, malfunctions did happen. Ships were complicated machines crewed by complicated people. Murphy’s visits were not unheard of.

“On a Seekers’ ship?” The Captain shook his head. “Those guys are a bunch of amoral fanatics, but also extremely intelligent and hypercompetent. If you thought that elves or elder mechanists are perfect and infallible, you’ve clearly never met a promethean cultist of the Truthseekers. And their technology is much better. Hmph.” He kept gazing on the screen for a short while. “I think they are trying to herd us somewhere. While trying to make it look like they are pursuing us.”

“With all due respect, that’s paranoid.” Lena decided to interject. “That would require them to expect that we will survive an encounter with that Extradimensional and defeat both Hao’s forces and their smaller fleet in Senla.”

“The real question is different.” He looked at her with an almost playful smile. “If they didn’t plan for Hao to be taken down, why would they give him so little of their technology and only a single Perfect out of four hundred? And why did they separate their forces in Senla? After all, they had a garrison in the Tavian station that could stop anyone from escaping. In fact, why didn’t they kill everyone who wasn’t with them? It’s not very Seekers-like.”

“Quick Reply: To sneak some spies aboard any ship that would liberate that outpost?” Innocent answered. “I already found and eliminated three of them, while feeding two more with false information.”

“The Seekers’ plans are always multidimensional.” The Captain shook his head. “They managed to survive despite being under attack by the Confederation of Mankind, Solar Federation and Discord’s Council of Woes. While being grossly outnumbered by any of their opponents. The Seekers wouldn’t survive if they left anything to chance.” He squinted his eyes. “If anything, things are going too smooth for it to be true.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Lena said against herself. “How would they be able to predict your moves and decisions?”

“They keep extensive databases of knowledge about their enemies.” The Captain replied. “They like to create their psychological profiles and then use specialized low class AIs to predict their actions in specific situations. I already had a brush with them, so I assume they have my profile and keep updating it with new information.”

This sounded possible to Lena, though still crazily paranoid.

“If I’m right, we’ve arrived a bit too quickly.” The Captain continued. “They were assembling an expedition to somewhere, and initially planned to use Hao’s forces as a support. Or cannon fodder to clear the minefield with their bodies. Since we found out about their operation, they sent Hao to stop us. However, they also believed that Hao’s defeat was a possibility, so they prepared their forces in Senla accordingly. To bait me into attacking the smaller fleet that they probably staffed with their members of questionable competence and loyalty. So that they could then shepherd us into said minefield.” He turned his eyes from the screen to Lena. “How does that sound?”

“Crazy.” Lena replied. “Absolutely crazy. But it seems to be at least theoretically possible. We’ll know eventually. It’s not like we can change our course, so we’ll get to find out the truth after we arrive at ECHELON base.”

“Statement: The level of possibly correct paranoia has reached an uncomfortable level.” Innocent said. “I’m going to return to my seat, in order to tinker with our missiles a bit and plan my next sermon.” Once the machine left, the Captain looked questioningly towards Lena.

“I heard that you met with Chief Tiaa recently.” Lena froze. Not literally, of course. She installed a system similar to the neurallinks used on voidcraft fighters in her Doll. When the system detected her shock, it accelerated her thoughts to give her a few subjective seconds to calm down before making a visible reaction.

“Yes.” She replied calmly. “Your recent achievements made me curious about you, so I decided to ask her some questions. In the end, we’ve spent almost two hours gossiping about people on Echo. I think that we might do it again soon.” Mostly because I, once I switched off my analysis device, found her to be quite a fun person to talk with. Besides, additional damage dealer for my next GoI record breaking will be more than useful.

The best type of lie was always the one that was mostly a truth. Since the Captain knew about the meeting, he could also know the things they talked about. It wasn’t likely to be true, but Lena wasn’t taking any chances. If he knew what she was trying to learn, she was already toast. And that was the only thing she omitted.

“Ah, I see.” Captain nodded. “Well, that’s good. Befriending someone should help her. She is much too serious about everything. By the way, what do you think about our chief engineer’s last idea? I think it’s a bit…”