Chapter 146: (Dreams) (1/2)
Dreams had spent the day talking to various Vuknaraan diplomats. Most of whom were trying to decide exactly how to ask the Unified Civilized Races Council for advice on how to approach the fact that one of their diplomats had been used in an attempt to assassinate the sitting diplomat of another species. She had asked a few questions, like what did they plan to do if they were told that nothing would happen or that a board of inquiry would be formed or a panel would be put together and the results would take years or decades to reach a conclusion.
The diplomats had all agreed with the idea of forming a committee to investigate if a panel should be formed to examine the evidence might be the best way to do things in order to not make waves.
Finally, just wanting to change the subject if nothing else, Dreams asked the politician that she was visiting what the status was of the primitives outside the city.
Since the primitives did not have system identification numbers then technically the primitives did not exist and thus they had no status.
To which Dreams just dropped the line of inquiry.
She had stayed up late with Speaks and Fights both, trying to understand everything, trying to look for any clues on who the power being the Lanaktallans might be.
Which is why she was sitting, in her favorite sim, idly stirring the currents of the creek with one bladearm while she watched the fish, run by their own VI, dart around in the water.
”The just isn't enough data,” she mused to herself.
There was a slight feeling of amusement from Pinion, which made her look up, flicking her antenna somewhat irritably.
”What's so funny?” Dreams asked.
Pinion shifted slightly, making an amused noise. ”Watching all of you go over all of that data without seeing the obvious.”
Dreams sighed. Pinion was right. It didn't matter if she brought in Fights or Speaks, they were still Mantid, which meant they looked at things the same way.
”What is so obvious?” Dreams asked.
”First, an anecdote,” Pinion said. Dreams made a 'go ahead' gesture and the massive war-borg continued. ”A few decades back, during the Vagrant Belt Incident, I knew a mechanek that specialized in man-pack missile and rocket systems. He could thread a datalink controlled smart missile through a hab-complex hallway and out the far window to hit a hovercraft in mid-air, he was that good. Any type of rocket or missile he showed almost preternatural skill with.”
Dreams watched as the massive cyborg held out his left hand with the palm up, showing various images of warborgs with missile systems firing them as well as the massive damage the missiles did.
”He was a terror with those missiles, to the point he could get the maximum use out of the minimum payloads,” Pinion continued. ”Now, one day he was killed by a rocket. Care to guess who fired it?”
Dreams thought for a moment. ”The obvious answer is the enemy, or perhaps an incompetent third party, but as this is an anecdote that supposedly relates to the situation, I will assume that he fired it.”
Pinion nodded. ”Yes. There was a factory error on a lot number of his favorite missile, which he would fire, skip off the ground to alter the flight profile, and attack the enemy with. This error made it so the minimum stand-off distance, which prevents a missile from detonating right in front of the launcher, no longer functioned correctly.”
”And he blew himself up,” Dreams said.
Again, Pinion nodded. ”Because he assumed he knew everything about the missile and when the update came he didn't bother to read it because there was nothing left for him to understand about that missile.”
Dreams went to nibble on the end of her bladearm and instead summoned up a tray of treats to much on. She thought over the story for a bit, spearing small pieces of rolled fish and seaweed and dipping it in sauces. Finally she looked up at Pinion.
”All right, I am ready to hear what is so obvious to you,” Dreams stated.
Pinion moved slowly through the eVR, covered by the Pacific Northwest Sasquatch hologram, moving through the thick ferns.
”Bioweapons and gene crackers are weapons, crafted from tools, and it is easy to forget that tools are dangerous,” Pinion said, stopping between two trees. The moss hanging from them mostly hid him. ”A knife is humanities oldest friend, right next to a club. Both the club and the knife are the reason we are what we are. We did not have bladearms or claws or big fangs, we had to master the knife and club to climb up the ranks of the food change,” the massive warborg rumbled. ”Every day, right now, there are a couple dozen humans who had died because they forgot the simple fact that for all of its usefulness, the knife is still a weapon. Humans die all the time acting as if a knife is a toy not a dangerous multi-function tool.”
Pinion went silent and Dreams thought about what the big cyborg had said. She knew what the warborg was saying but it seemed almost impossible.
”Another thing to consider is a pair of fun facts,” Rack suddenly said.
Dreams looked over at her guard. ”All right.”
”It takes a hundred and fifty pounds of force to break a human forearm,” Rack said.
Dreams nodded. ”The human forearm is an excellent defensive feature.”
”It takes five pounds of force to collapse a windpipe,” Rack finished.
Dreams stared at the fish while she considered what her two guards had told her. She disliked the assumption that the Lanaktallan were stupid and clumsy enough to mess up their own genome. It just felt like too easy of an answer that ignored the possibility of them being the catspaw in another's plans.
”Madame Ambassador, do you consent to a little more anecdotal sidetracks,” Rack asked, moving forward and kneeling down next to her.
”If you think it will help,” Dreams said.
”Pinion and I understand what you are grappling with,” Rack said. He held out his left hand, palm up, and brought up a hologram of Mantid warrior class, in armor, with a heavy plasma rifle.
”Inertia dampening shields, a plasma rifle capable of melting stainless steel, able to run at thirty miles and hour for up to an hour with busts of speed up to fifty miles an hour. Multi-faceted eyes able to see across multiple spectrum, psychic abilities including the ability to create a blade-like focus of psychic energy. Body armor capable to handling 2.12 megawatt lasers in the high UV range. An engine of destruction, the will of the Queens, and the back upon which the entire Mantid Hive Empire was built upon,” Rack said.
Dreams nodded, feeling slight revulsion at the sight of the warrior caste.
The hologram flickered to show a seated human eating jam out of a pot, dressed in torn jeans and a t-shirt, with a doofy smile on his face with an empty whiskey bottle next to him.
”Behold! Humanity!” Rack said dramatically.
Dreams giggled. ”OK, I get it. It's viewpoint. There's no way the male eating jam could beat the warrior, so you never consider him to be the downfall of the Mantid.”
Rack shook his head. ”No, Madame Ambassador, there is a reason I used this picture.”
The hologram flickered again to show a human male in Imperium of Rage armor, his face twisted with absolute fury, in the middle of tearing a warrior caste Mantid soldier in half with his armored hands.
”Same human,” Rack said.
”Oh,” Dreams said.
”Who rules a herd?” Pinion suddenly asked.
Dreams considered it. ”Nobody. It moves by consensus. Herd creatures value conformity to the herd so that the loss of one does not negatively effect the herd.”
Pinion shook his head, the eVR construct around it making it look like his 'beard' was swaying back and forth. ”Not necessarily true.”
A horse appeared in the middle of the clearing. A Terran Great Plains Equine. Fierce appearing, proud looking, a massive engine of bone, sinew, and muscle.
”A herd stallion. He's in charge. If he goes down, there's another to take his place,” Pinion said. ”He decides who, if anyone, breeds, where they go, when they go. He's also the one who usually fights.”
The horse was replaced by a Lanaktallan. Only bigger. A lot bigger.
”This is doubled in size. It requires four times the food. It has eight times the mass,” Pinion rumbled.
Next to the Lanaktallan a historical image of a Mantid Warrior appeared.
They were roughly the same size.
Both were suddenly clad in armor and carrying weapons.
”You've been wracking your brains trying to figure out how the Lanaktallan beat you. You, the Mantids, who defeated and devoured everyone you met except for humans and the Precursors. How could you lose to such a inept species?” Pinion said.
”Your people know one another's caste a glance. You know what they are capable of, how they think, what they do, and their place in society,” Rack said. ”But the Lanaktallan aren't you.”
It was silent for a long moment during which Mr. Rings peeked out of a water filled bole, wondering what all the excitement had been about. It saw the two big holograms and ducked back into the bole.
”Behold, Humanity,” Dreams said softly. ”My people would miss the fact that the human is now powered by blood sugar overload making his cells rapid-fire for hours, that he had voluntarily imbibed an anesthetic and is still able to function, would miss that with a single movement that empty bottle would become a sharp edged weapon. We would wonder how the drunk human with a pot of jam in one hand and a broken whiskey bottle in the other had defeated a half dozen Warrior caste before being brought down.”
Dreams shook her head. ”He should be going into sugar-shock or be poisoned by the alcohol,” she looked at the image of the same human in Imperium of Rage armor. ”What you see is not what you get.”
She brought up a plate of food again, knowing that she shouldn't be snacking so much, but she wanted the protein for brain food. She stirred the water with one bladearm, clicking her mandibles as she thought.
”The alterations to the Lanaktallan could be accidentally on purpose, with unmodified Lanaktallan really pulling the strings,” Dreams said.
”Another side bar, Madam Ambassador,” Rack said.
Dreams made another signal to go ahead.
”A wheeled ground effect vehicle is traveling toward a crowd at ninety miles per hour,” Rack said, bringing up holograms, wiping away the Lanaktallan and the Warrior and replacing them with a fancy fast looking car heading toward a crowd. The crowd was suddenly labeled ”Lanaktallan Population” and the car was labeled ”Lanaktallan Culture” and the driver of the car was labeled ”Directed Modification” as the car sped forward.
”OK, I can agree with this,” Dreams said.
”The driver suddenly vanishes. What happens?” Rack asked, removing the driver from the video.
”The car hits the crowd anyway. Inertia,” Dreams said, then groaned as she realized what Rack was alluding to. She slowly ran a bladearm through her mandiles to sharpen it then went back to stirring the water for a moment before lifting up droplets and looking at them.
”A Lanaktallan fears entropy, the complete depletion of resources. They've mined away entire gas-giants, stripped entire asteroid belts, strip-mined whole worlds,” Dreams said. ”They've ended up with a homeostasis with no reason to change. Just collecting resources, stockpiling them, and continuing on with a plan set down who knows how long ago because it works.”
There was silence again.
”Except, one point, Madam Ambassador,” Pinion added.
”What?”
”Where are all the resources?” Rack asked.
Dreams didn't know, and that bothered her.