Qorsikan First Contact

[Qora]

M6.437.42
Qorsikan Home System
War Games Concluded
1st Fleet Flagship, Sacrosanct
Sacrosanct Class Battleship

In the war room of the flagship of the 1st Fleet, the large staff of officers runs around the room collecting field reports and data for testing new void combat strategies and tactics as well as the possibility of making a Titan class warship plausible. The room is filled with stacks of folders, binders, and papers with the highest commanding officers present sitting around the holomap replaying segments of the war games and evaluating strategy that is when a paper is given to the High Lord Admiral Akir.

He skeptically picks up the folder and looks at it. The manilla folder contains only two sheets of paper and has a large stamped seal on it reading "TOP SECRET HERETICAL INFORMATION DISCLOSED" prominently on the front face. "What's so important that this dossier is given to me in the middle of R&D?"

"Urgent request from..." The yeoman sighs, "The Imperial Court. It is in your wisdom if you wish to share it."

The Admiral, looking obviously annoyed opens it and begins reading, muttering to himself.

"Over the last few weeks, nigh undetectable surges of alpha and electromagnetic radiation has randomly appeared across the Qorsikan star system. Each one moved to a more acceptable environment for the invasion of a Xenos fleet, away from gravity wells and in a prominent location in the home system. The tests you have been conducting has been for the development for a new class of ship to overpower a theoretical Xenos invasion by a power far more advanced than our own."

Dread and fear fill his face as he continues reading. Large tables filled with tactical analyses, spatial coordinates, times discovered by the psionic defense network, probable causes, improbable causes, size and lengths of the anomalies fill the next two pages. "According to the scientific data listed above, there's a 3.783% probability another spatial anomaly will appear 5 Mm away Qorsika herself at a latitudinal displacement of 42.56 degrees and longitudinal displacement of
12.52 degrees. Imperial request to send VWAC with highly sensitive Alpha and EM RAD sensor arrays."

He pauses for a moment and focuses on his breathing. He turns to the Yeoman, "Inform Fighter Squadron 4 under my command to go to these coordinates." He takes a notecard and writes down a long series of numbers detailing a 3km³ search area. "Tell them ... we've found some ghosts and our sensors require maintenance."

"Yes, m' lord." The Yeoman salutes walk a few steps back and leave.

Two minutes later

A squadron of 4 Vengeance Class Interceptors warps to their target destination. "Admiral wants us to work on a narrow band for any anomalous signals detected here. Something is apparently spooking out the technicians." The squadron lets out a chuckle. "You know the search pattern. We're looking for EM and Alpha."

Few minutes pass and they sit around staring at their multiple sensor screens until something blips on the EM sensors staying. "See that?"

"Aye, Sir."

The squad leader quickly dispatches on the psionic network. "EM signature detected. Several cms across. Curr- Active for 5 seconds."

One of the squad members interrupt. "Several lightweight objects materialized. Nearly undetectable via EM/Alpha. Too much background noise."

"I see- they're... gone?"

Seconds pass as the technicians aboard the sacrosanct responds "Confirmed. 3 Light Seconds away from our position."

Chatter starts to flood the psionic network about nearly undetectable things randomly popping up on various sensor arrays. "Gravimetric sensors detected something entering the low orbit of Her Shield. Confirm?" "LADAR reporting its sensors are curving mere meters above our vessel. Request confirmation of anomaly." "Unknown Menace found on our FTL sensors warping at... by Her name... more than 4 AU a second!"

Lord Admiral Akir, over the psionic network, "Silence! Are there any civilian reports or sightings? This will seriously damage Her Scion's reputation." An awkward silence lingers for several minutes, "No m' lord."

"Await for the EM signature to reappear and disappear again. Whoever sent them will probably want their expensive drones back after all that reconnaissance they've just done. Afterward, we're going into action stations and make combat formation Alpha Two Seven. Then activate tactical cogitators and feed them the reports."

The psionic network fell silent followed by a brief confirmation that everyone has understood their orders. "I know that you've restricted the network to only transmit between military ships within this system," noted one of the lesser admirals, "wouldn't it be prudent to rally the rest of the 1st fleet across the core worlds."

Akir sighs, "No. Since the Inquisition has done its work well enough to make this true we have hours at the minimum instead of months. We cannot wait for them. Hopefully, those drones are unable to intercept our psionic transmission as ... most species are unable to. Yeoman, inform the Inquisitor of our findings. Also give them the recording of our psionic comms over the last minute as further evidence supporting their claims. May She guide us in these dark times."

The yeoman salutes, prints out the information and acquires the recorded evidence and leaves the war room.

[Xah]

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Nexus

The Owner Gate-Opener would have done the equivalent of sitting back in its chair and frowning, had it been human. Instead, it was only in digital form, it's physical self back on Hub, over six hundred thousand kilometres away. Unusual Gate operations happened; the multiverse was a big place, and the random nature of initial Gate creation did, occasionally, bring up interesting results. It was exceedingly rare for inhabitants to detect Nexus Gates prior to their official opening however; despite the best efforts of Owner technology, if one wished to observe a universe, one must interact with it. Interaction implies cause and effect, and such things are not immune to detection. The Gate that opens to allow the drones through is brief, barely a few milliseconds in length, and the recon drones themselves are small, barely a few centimetres across, but when the Gate blinked open and closed to allow them through, the Owner detected vessels on the far side. Vessels that appeared to be waiting. It ran the feed back, parsing the data into frames barely picoseconds long and confirmed its initial suspicions; the inhabitants on the other side had detected Gate openings and were waiting. The Owner checked protocol before escalating the incident up the chain. It was now someone else's problem.

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Qorsikan Universe

The recon drones were not, technically speaking, sapient. The Owners had rather strict rules about the use of fully-sapient intelligences in high-risk situations and how it was to be avoided. They were highly adaptable and benefited from powerful decision making capabilities that rendered them equal in intelligence to most 'true' sapient intelligences, they just lacked a sense of awareness and self. When uncloaked, they resembled an uninteresting matt-silver sphere, but internally, they were the equal of the best technology in the Nexus, with a black-hole generator providing both power and drive. True to their programming, they passed through the Gate into the universe beyond, transmitting the presence of vessels on the far side, before each of the six drones engaged their inertia-less drives and darted off towards their assigned destinations.

Their missions were very simple; each was assigned a nearby body of significant gravitational mass, including any local stars. Approach assigned body, scan, then return, scanning targets of opportunity as necessary. An Owner scan wasn't something as primitive as measurement on an electromagnetic scale, instead they did two things; firstly they produced a detailed 'map' of the gravitational interactions, rendered down to a resolution of just a few millimetres, then they 'queried' targeted atomic nucleus within range, getting information regarding its state and position. This provided a broad picture of the state of the surrounding area to take back to the Nexus, and allowed the Owners to plan the parameters of the 'official' Gate opening.

Despite processing powers available to them, the second scan was relatively time-consuming, and the drones were given several hours to perform their tasks. If a target was particularly complex, then other drones who had finished their scans helped with the processing, before they all returned to the Gate together. The Qorsikan system, with the high levels of technology and widespread nature of the civilisation, was one such complex target. The local star was easy enough; despite their size, most un-altered stars had a fairly uniform state, as were most gas giants, although orbital platforms and mining operations added a few milliseconds onto the scan time. The Qorsikan homeworld was complex indeed, with the assigned drone calling in assistance from two other drones to complete its scan in the allotted time.

All scans complete, the drones engaged their drives and headed back towards the location of the Gate. They were aware of the vessels nearby, but their algorithms did not assign them much priority.

[Qora]

M6.437.42
Qorsikan Home System
1st Fleet Flagship, Sacrosanct
Sacrosanct Class Battleship

Hours have passed while sightings kept getting posted silently. The machines in the war room rapidly transcribing the missives onto thermal paper spitting out hundreds of pages each with a report on some other sensor in another point of time. The many executive officers across the war room quickly read and organize the missives sorting them into several piles; 1st Fleet, Inquisition, Civilian. Thankfully no civilian sightings have been reported until the last hour where there was a report of small matte-silver spheres with high-resolution pictures barely noticing them. A total of three sightings have been reported once the message came in. "All Xenos drones exfiltrated the area."

Akir sighs and sits back in his chair. "The council is going to have to have my head for this."

Akir's Yeoman comes back into the room with another folder and hands it to Akir. Akir opens it and starts reading, "Seems they're benevolent enough to let me live for a moment longer if I can come up with an adequate excuse for the sightings." He lets out a loud sigh, "Tell them we were developing potential high-speed scouting probes and were testing it in the most defended system we are aware of in the galaxy. As they've been sighted so quickly it is obviously a failure and we're going to redesign it."

As the yeoman leaves to send the message to the Imperial Court, "Oh, and tell them if it looks like we're preparing for a defense against an invasion... tell them we've been developing FTL capabilities that open the galaxy much more to us."

As the yeoman leaves to deliver the message Akir picks up his datapad and starts reorganizing the thousands of assets of his fleet that are currently in the system placing strategic reserves across the system when the yeoman comes back with another confidential message.

"Great... seems we're going to have escort duty on top of this as well. For the van."

The Vanguard Admiral asks, "Great. What needs to be done?"

"Apparently, Her Holiness, in her guided wisdom, seems it appropriate to attempt first contact measures in case they aren't hostile. If they are to be proven hostile she is to be quickly evacuated and the Xenos invasion fleet cleansed from the void."

"Understood, m'lord."

[Xah]

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Nexus

On the other side of the now-closed Gate, the Owners were busy preparing for that most unusual of events; an opening to a Gate to a universe that might be aware of their presence. The usual pomp and ceremony were being by-passed, with the Gate location being isolated from the Nexus by fields. Clients that had previously expressed an interest in being present were offered apologies, and the usual couple of Envoy craft were supplemented by an Owner Emissary class vessel - somewhat larger and capable of offering a much increased range. After the scout drones had been retrieved, their data would be analysed, then the Gate opened once more; without the customary delay that usually followed. A short debate on altering the location of the Gate opening decided to keep it the same; the risk of the potential Client interpreting the move as a hostile act was too great, and the current location was more than suitable for an advanced space-faring civilisation.

Everything was ready, all that was needed now was the return of the drones.

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Qorsikan Universe

The scout drones rendezvoused together a few hundred thousand kilometres from the Gate opening and synchronised their local times, something that was required due to their relativistic speeds. At a precise moment, they accelerated towards the patch of space where the Gate had appeared previously and, in an instance too fast for most biological minds to register, they arrived at that point, the Gate opened, and the scouts vanished from this universe, leaving very little trace that they had ever existed.

There was nothing, for about twenty minutes, as the scout data was parsed and examined, and a detailed database of the information was collated. Then, suddenly, a hole opened in the area of space, widening to around a kilometre in diameter. Almost as soon as the Gate size stabilised, a vessel passed through; almost the same width as the Gate itself, shaped like a vast, circular stepped pyramid. It glided through the Gate and then stopped just inside the Qorsikan side, broadcasting a message on commonly used wavelengths in the Qorsikan language.


"Greetings to the people of the Holy Matriarchy of Qora, from the Owners of the Nexus. We come to you with peaceful intentions and wish to offer you participation in the Nexus, a multi-versal community of many races, species and civilisations. If you wish to discuss further, please decide who you wish to represent you and communicate on this frequency. Your chosen representative is cordially invited to visit the Nexus and see what is on offer. This offer is not time limited, and we will remain here until directed otherwise.

Once again, welcome to the Nexus."

[Qora]

M6.437.42
Qorsikan Home System
1st Fleet Flagship, Sacrosanct
Sacrosanct Class Battleship

As soon as The Owners' vessel materialized into the Qorsikan controlled void many hundreds of vessels from fighter craft to frigates started to swarm around it orbiting anywhere from 500m to 100km with interceptors orbiting at 500m with their weapons always pointed towards the large vessel and sensor boosting VWAC frigates orbiting at 100km. The layers of ships light seconds apart from each other aim their weapons at the distant vessel and the farthest down the line, the battlecruisers, started aiming their planetary cleansing weapons towards the vessels. The AWACs directing the current location of the targetted ship back towards the battleships through psionic transmission allowing the tactical cogitators to predict where the ship would be when any shot fired would hit. Battlecruisers aiming their great Ion Cannons and Cruisers aligning their Tachyon Lances at probable locations of where The Owner vessel would arrive.

As soon as the transmission was received by the flagship, Akir grew pale. He switched his transponder to send a message to the orbital planetary defenses, "Jam the damn system for half an hour. The Xenos are going to frighten the civilians." He turns to his Yeoman and says "Inform Her Scion and Her Council. Seems they have arrived... peacefully as they claim." He lets out a sigh allowing him to regain composure as the yeoman goes to deliver the message. He then picks up the radio speaker on the wavelengths that The Owners were speaking to them on, thankful they seem unable to speak to them through their own psionic network. "If your intentions are as 'peaceful' as you say... why did you invade the sovereignty of the void we have claimed? In fact, why should we believe anything you say?"

He gestures towards his bridge officers commanding the various task forces of the fleet the go-ahead to arm weapons and to open fire if they pick up anything on the sensors proving their peaceful intentions to be false. The Akira looking upon the various sensor readings being sent to the flagship through the various fighter, Corvette, and frigate class vessels in utter horror. "Oh, Empress. Preserve us."

M6.437.42
Qorsikan Home System
War Games Concluded
Her Throne

"Seems they're here, mistress. Are you sure this is wise?"

"Would it be wise to attack them?" Her Scion walks down from her lofty throne from above the great chamber. The gilded walls emblazoned with tapestries of what aliens would know as the official heraldry of Qora herself. "I believe in your skills in making war, but I do not think it is any wiser to incite an assault with an alien species capable of tearing apart the void... no matter how much their existence defiles this place." She places her hand on the Warmistress's shoulder. "Are you with me on this?"

She looks down at the floor, "Yes." Looking back at Her Scion. "I owe much to you."

"Get the envoy vessel ready. I'll personally make contact with the foul Xenos as required by my office. The rest of you... do whatever you need doing done before we visit them. We don't want another succession crisis happening if things go horribly wrong."

[Xah]

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Qorsikan Universe

The alien craft hangs motionless in space before the gate, with scans revealing nothing resembling weapons on it at all. In fact, scans reveal very little; the craft's structure appears to be incredibly consistent, with very little in the way of drives, fuel tanks, environmental systems, or even a command centre or bridge. There is a few moments pause after the reply from Akir before a message is transmitted back, this time on a tightbeam to the Flagship.

"Greetings again from the Nexus, Invasion of sovereignty is regrettable, but unavoidable, and does not represent any intention on our part to threaten or intimidate. We offer only peaceful intentions and an opportunity to participate in a multicultural cooperation and the benefits and advantages that come from that. To offer proof of our words, your chosen representative is cordially invited to visit the Nexus.

"As a show of good faith, this Gate can be moved to a location of your choosing, if its current location is unacceptable."

[Qora]

M6.437.42
Qorsikan Home System
1st Fleet Flagship, Sacrosanct
Sacrosanct Class Battleship

Akir sighs. Rereading the transmission log as the rest of his bridge sat in silence with only the near silent humming of environmental controls in the background filling the air. "Very well. We are required to inform you, by protocol, that we need to send an escort with our representative. Standard is a flight of vessels. Would you be able to accomodate that through your doorway?" Turning the transponder off again, "What's the threat level of that craft?"

The Techpriest constantly doing diagnostics on the sensor arrays, but shakes his head as they're operating optimally. "Neglible, M'lord. Though it is prudent to send The Guard alongside Her. Our sensor array is unable to determine anything beyond The Gate."

[Xah]

Gate 8318
Location 601,95,003
Qorsikan Universe

"As Client-designate, without official status as yet, your own vessels are not permitted through the Gate. Your chosen delegate is invited to board our craft for transport to the Nexus and may bring as many companions as they wish. If this is unacceptable, then negotiations regarding your status as a Client can be conducted on this side of the Gate, although we do encourage a visit prior to this, so we may showcase the benefits on offer.

"Once agreement is made, and Nexus Law is agreed upon, your vessels will have full access to the Nexus in a manner granted to all Clients of the Nexus."