RefSteel's Imperium 11 Report: The Hive Mind

[RefSteel]

Okay, so I may have gone slightly overboard on this one. I think I'm going to post this in many (many!) parts to help people with slow computer connections (like mine) deal with all the pictures more easily - spreading them out over more than one page. Dealing with all the prose is a whole other issue, of course, but I hope you enjoy the read!

[EDIT: And now I've moved the whole report over to its own page on my Meklon Gambit site as well, where it should be even easier on slow computer connections. The in-report pictures there are (for the most part) smaller, but can be opened out to full size if you click on them.]

[RefSteel]

In the beginning, I was one, and I was all. I stand in the between-times, and I look to the bend in the tunnel, I among many, I and many who shall again be one and all, in the end.

2300: The Exile

Who are you?

< ... >

Where have you come from?

< ... >

Never before have I entered the deeps of space, away from the noise and chatter of thoughts of the other hives. Have you been here always? Are you upon Kholdan besides? Are you one or many? Or are you both, like me?

< ... >

I do not see you, but perhaps you can not be seen. I do not hear you, but perhaps you can not speak. Yet I sense you, as I sense the Klackons of myself, as I sense the other hives and their own Klackons ... but dimly, faintly ... and I think you can hear me. It is good to sense you, to have a companion, though a silent one. I am pleased. I must leave, yet I would have you with me. Will you accompany me?

< ... >

Please. Lest I be alone in all the multitudes of me, you whom I sense, who I know not, please come with me. I know not what I can give that will please you as your company pleases me, but if you would hear, I shall tell you my thoughts, my story.

I am Klackon. I am my hive queen, and I am every drone and worker and soldier of my two millions, and I am none of these alone, for I am all of these. The thoughts of every Klackon brain are shared and mingled to become me, and I affect and direct each Klackon in an endless, perfect cycle, reflexively. As each Klackon and each prey beast and each plant on Kholdan below us is a separate organism of many cells, so I am a reflexive entity of many organisms, each alive and each a part of my life, part of me. So it is for each hive upon the surface of Kholdan, each sometimes-warring hive separately, but in legend there was a time, before Pandora's flight, when we were all a single hive, a single entity. And in me is the union of all the hives; for is it not in my name? I am the eleventh hive that came into beng, Reflexive Biological Organism #11, the 1 that is before and the 1 that is to follow. In me, the hives might be united once more: So I believed. Yet in seeking this union, in my search bearing fruit, I frightened the other hives and ther hive queens. I began to touch the thoughts of Klackons that were of other hives and not of me, and the other hives of the world, the 40 million Klackons would have turned upon me and my bare two million. So I have chosen this self-imposed exile instead; I shall take to the stars alone, and seek a place to live beyond the reach of jealousy. Yet there is pleasure in company; in the alone, there is an emptiness. I am glad that I can sense you. I deeply hope that you may come with me.



Not far from here, just three years' lonely journey, there lies a yellow star so like Kholdan's that I hope it may harbor a world as lush and beautiful as the one I leave. Other life may have evolved on a world with such a star, but if so, I hope that life may welcome me. Another star, deep violet, lies as close in the opposite direction, but I have no faith that I will be able to survive on any of its worlds, its light is so different from that in which my Klackons were born. Still, I shall reach out for it with one of my Scouts, even as one of my Klackons might reach out its antennae or one of its limbs, in the faint hope that what I touch there shall be livable, in the faint dread that the yellow star might fail me. Another Scout I have as well, and with this one I shall reach out further, toward the distant yellow star nearest the heart of the galaxy. In legend, this is a propitious year - I chose it for that reason - 2300, "the year of the Triad's Birth," and the legend is associated with an astronomical fact - the alignment of stars not just in Kholdan's sky but in the actual galaxy. So after careful calculation, in case another people reaches out from another star just as I do, I have chosen the most coreward star I can reach. It is near enough to that yellow star that I might meet a ship of its people, but far enough that they might not - perhaps - reach the star before me. Thus, I reach out with my second Scout toward the green star near the heart of the galaxy.

There is a fear in me, arising most of all from the Scouts' pilots, that as I travel apart from myself, I shall lose touch with distant parts of me, and my Scouts shall be forced to live as independent organisms, lost and alone without the rest of me. The people of Kholdan know no such fear; they content themselves with their own hives, each reflexive entity's Klackons working faithfully for their own, further developing the planet's industry. Fortunate hives and Klackons who need not fear losing each other! Unfortunate hives and Klackons who shall never see the stars up close or know the true unity I might have brought them had they let me!

2301-02: Reaching Outward
Slowly, slowly, I spread myself across the stars, reaching my Scouts far away from my millions and my queen ... and slowly, slowly, learning the means with each passing moment, I find ways to remain whole in spite of my distant reach. The thoughts of my Scouts are still my own, and are still a part of me; the circle is unbroken, and I feel you also present in spite of my travels, and there is a deep joy within me!

2303: The Homeworld
Can you see with my eyes, the eyes of the Klackons who compose me? Look if you can upon the joy and pleasure of what I see! At the purple star, my Scout has found the world of Omicron - no jewel, but a place where I can live - and as I can stretch myself so far without breaking, I shall indeed live there someday, with at least some part of me! Yet the relief of that discovery is drowned even in the moment of its conception ... for my hive ship has come to the yellow star, and I see the world that orbits it: The world of Maalor! A world beyond even my most hopeful dreams!

First that ART world right under our lee in Imperium 10, and now this?! A UR Minimal 50 at a yellow star at range 3?!?! You have got to be kidding me!

I had resolved to respect the choice of my fellow hives upon Kholdan, but only look upon Maalor! Mineral deposits, energy sources, everything of which our engineers could dream, stand pure and naked upon the surface where any of my workers can mine them by taking all the trouble of stooping! There is room and to spare on this wondrous world; it would be a crime not to share it with Kholdan's people! I send my thoughts across space to the Klackons of the world that birthed me, touching their thoughts with my joy, showing them what I see ... and they are drawn to me like iron to a lodestone! They too can see the glories of Maalor, my new homeworld! They too share in my joy, and many - many millions! - of workers and soldiers and drones break from their old hives to join with mine, and become of me! I had not meant for this to happen; I had meant only to invite other hives to join me here if they would swear to peace and trust in me to use restraint with my power of reaching their Klackons' minds ... but all that is changed! The hive queens all refuse me, and even as they do so, I am overwhelmed with the joy and hope of millions of Klackons eager to leave Kholdan and join with me, outnumbering those I had always been by more than six to one! Though Maalor remains the heart of me, centered still around my hive queen, I can not refuse thirteen million glad and eager Klackons who now compose the main part of my very self! They are coming, thronging to the rest of me aboard hastily-assembled transports - hastily assembled for those parts of me and by them, by me! - and knowing this, I only wish to welcome more, for there is only joy in me! The other hives fear me more than ever, for they perceive my love as power, my joy as triumph over them, and they work to assemble war ships to cross the stars and do battle with me, but I feel the laughter of millions within myself, and with the strength of my knowledge and of those millions and of my love, I touch the minds of the starship engineers, and I touch the minds of the pilots, and it shall be found when the war ships are done that they are not ships of war at all but only harmless Scouters - and that they belong to and share in and are a part of me!

2304: Growth and Change
I feel of my beautiful new Scouters, shining in the ever-night sky of deepest space. They are beautiful and beloved, now-inseparable parts of me, and I stretch them out toward all the stars that I can reach, to learn what is around us - to know our galaxy. Millions more still flock to me, to my Maalor from Kholdan, and a feeling of laughter wells within me, a feeling I had not known until these two years' millions joined with me. I feel the minds of the hives upon Kholdan and touch them gently - lovingly, yes, but also with a hint of laughing mischief such as I had not known before 2303 ... and the other Hives are back at their old, industrious labor, pleased with the war ships that thanks to my whispers they still believe are real and flying toward me, failing to realize that even as my millions come to join me upon Maalor, I am among them on Kholdan as well, and always shall be.

2305: The Legend in the Deeps
I laugh with the mingling joy of over 20 million Klackons, more of me leaving Kholdan even now than yet lives upon Maalor's surface, but all coming to my homeworld, with most already on their way. They are close now - the bulk of me shall arrive by next year! - and now my groping Scout, stretching through the night, the source of this new, amazing, swift-spreadng joy, touches the green star near to the heart of the galaxy. I meet no friend from another people, but what I do find is perhaps a still greater joy to me! Oceans wash over towering spires that rise from the sea beds and coral reefs, scattering spray into the world's wind! Broken cities, long abandoned, lie scattered upon the ocean floors and stand in the crashing surf, sustained apparently against millions of years of battering ocean erosion by some impossible technology! The only life signs are of plankton and algae, and a few deep-ocean plants and fish - no sentience but the part of me that is my Scout, and perhaps yourself - and it is a legend reborn! For legends almost as ancient as those of Pandora speak also of Atlantis, the island hive of wise and powerful Klackons that was lost forever in a forgotten era, sinking with all its knowledge and beauty into the sea. Our legends say that if only we could find it, we might ourselves learn the secrets of the gods themselves! And so I laugh in all of me, for perhaps the legend shall prove true!

What is it with me and these artifacts worlds? Another lame draw, almost as bad as Hyper-V! Oh, and for the record, I'm officially playing for score now. I said I wouldn't do it until the game was well in hand, but with Maalor and Artemis here for the taking, the game's in hand already.

Though many are crumbling ruins, parts of many of the planet's artificial structures remain intact, and I learn much about this lost people's architecture and hints of their style of living from the moment I touch the world's surface with my Scout. Thrillingly too, the world's name at first appears to be Atlantis, according to records kept by its own people, still preserved after what must be centuries! The thrill is short-lived however, as further examination reveals that though similar, the name is in fact drawn from another legend: Artemis the Huntress, a goddes who was said to take the form of a queen with no hive, and with need of none, a queen who did the task of soldier Klackons more capably than the most skilled of ours. It is said that she slew the great hunter Orion in ancient times - he who chose as his quarry hiveless queens - and that he and those he had slain were cast into the night sky over which Artemis was said to reign. It seems we live in a time of legend, and I know not whether to take heart from these great omens, or whether to dismiss them out of hand. If the people of Artemis had called their world Atlantis, it might hint at some secret meaning ... but it is not so, and the two bear no connection, apart from some relation to the tides. I suspect that any name we found there would have some counterpart in legend if we chose to turn our minds that way. Yet we have learned more tangible lessons from Artemis as well: There is a reason the cities were not battered to sand by the pounding of the foamy breakers. Those that still stand among the crashing waves are protected by still-functioning energy shields that deflect the force of the tides harmlessly! Shield generators, intact and humming, stand in the heart of each building on the surface, built so sturdily, in such complete hermetic isolation, that they have somehow survived the centuries! I probe them with my Scout, and the greatest scientists and engineers among the Klackons look on - for when they saw the wonders of Maalor, nearly all of any skill defected to me! - a part of my consciousness and knowledge even as I am part of theirs, and working carefully, all of myself acting as one, I pry at the secrets of the shield generators, discover the repair schematics impressed upon their interiors, compare them with what I can see of their inner workings, and learn to build them myself, even without advanced Artemisian tools - with my bare Klackons if necessary! Even now, the first generator hums to life in the Queen's Hall, the greatest structure yet built on Maalor, the heart of my hive ... and there is so much more yet to learn from Artemis! By what miracle, for instance, are those shield generators powered, that they have remained in perfect order, deflecting the force of endless tides, throughout the centuries? Some of the greatest minds still on Kholdan hear and wonder with me, and yearning for knowledge, become a part of me, and with them, as part of them, as they are part of me, I begin to question, seeking answers on distant Artemis with my Scout while I perform countless experiments at Kholdan with the pincers of my capable engineers there, even as their thoughts, sharing in and becoming my own thoughts, direct me. I will test each new theory each part of me develops until I have learned the secrets of Artemisian energy!

I can not conceal the beauty of Artemis, of its cities rising from the deeps, of its ocean jewels in their settings of frosty waves beating upon forgotten spires and coral reefs. I can not conceal the thrill and pleasure of discovery, the hope of reaching beyond the knowledge of the lost ocean world - nay, not even the superstitious belief in some connection between Artemis and Atlantis, those too-similar names. Could one be a mere corruption? Could this be the land of legend made real? I can not contain this knowledge, this hope, and I no longer wish to contain it - not with the swelling feelings of the tens of millions already swarming to me. I open my heart, my thoughts, the glories that I see, to all the people of Kholdan. I give welcome to each Klackon - each worker and drone and soldier, yes, but also every queen, every full reflexive, collective entity! I cry out to them with the beauty and the glory of all I have experienced, all I have seen, "Come with me! Come with me and join me among the brilliant stars! Swim in Artemisian oceans, seas of knowledge and of beauty! Walk upon the hills of Maalor among the energy crystals' gleam! Come with me and jon with me as I shall join with you, across our glorious galaxy!" I call them, and my queen calls, and my millions call them with me.

2306: Exile's End
I could not refuse a call so kind, so strong, so sweet! Oh, how it crossed the stars, so bright, so glorious, irresistible in its welcome, in its promises now kept! For I am Klackon - I am all! I am all of me who called out, and I am all of me who answered - I am the great hive queen of Maalor and the 15 million Klackons who live with her, and I am the seven millions in space hurrying to join them, the two million more already boarding transports too from the world of my birth, and I am all the Klackons of Kholdan, queens and soldiers, drones and workers and scouts, winged and wingless, large and small! I am no longer any single hive or any single queen, for I am all, and though my homeworld will always be Maalor, where the exile that began this age of wonder first arrived, and though I shall always be RBO-11 for the portents of that name, I am unity. I am whole. My Kholdan Klackons, my Kholdan hives, put aside their selfish labors, and join together on the greatest project that has ever been begun: For though the secrets of the Artemis shield generators' power source remains a mystery, my scientists have analyzed a substance used in one portion of the power cycle and found it an immensely efficient fuel system! Every Klackon on Kholdan, apart from the drones needed to feed the world and maintain its existing infrastructure, takes part in my new research project - building labs, conducting experiments, collecting materials, and interpretting results, according to the abilities of each - for I now have a goal toward which they can reach!



If I can devise Deuterium Fuel Cells based on this technology, they will make it possible for my people to reach Artemis itself, to settle its oceans and restore our Atlantis to its former glory above and beneath the sea! We shall yet learn the mysteries of Artemis, and we shall spread throughout the galaxy! And you, my friend, friend to the exile who has grown into me, you to whom I tell my story ... I hope someday to hear your voice. It is a pleasure to sense you. I am all, but as all, I am yet alone among the boundless stars - alone but for you. Please ... please stay with me.

< ... >

[RefSteel]

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Yes, but the more things change, the more they also change!

2307-12: Home Sweet Home (And I do mean SWEET!)
It's a funny thing: You change when you incorporate 36 million sentient near-strangers into your mind! (Who'd have thought, you know?) Oh, I'd had some experience with it when my numbers swelled in 2303 - part of me had - but that was a small fraction of who I am now, and there was still just the single queen. This ... well, I'm a lot of hive queens now, and a whole, whole lot of Klackons. I'm RBO-11 all right, still am, always will be. I remember my friends, and remember the events that led to my unification, and I'm proud of them as can be. Doesn't mean I'm quite the same now - I'm everybody! And from this point on, this is my galaxy!

Millions of my Klackons continue to swarm from Kholdan to my homeworld of Maalor each year, keeping pace with Kholdan's birth rate so that its population hovers just above one third of what the planet can support. Maalor is building infrastructure like crazy, trying to catch up with all the incoming transports. It's no wonder I've made the place my homeworld; I can't keep my thoughts off all those delicious mineral resources! Well ... except when I'm casting my thoughts and my will across the stars to the lost cities of Artemis! Kholdan continues to put virtually all its efforts into research.

Like Sullla, I believe it's (almost!) always best to max out your homeworld before doing anything else. So I'm doing everything in my power to speed up the maxing of Maalor!
...
...
Why are you looking at me that way?

I do get a few more Scouters into the skies, getting into position for Deuterium or additional refueling bases to extend their range, and now that I know a little more about the planets in my neighborhood, I begin to consider how to improve them. There are barren worlds around me, but they are neither numerous nor anything like Artemis or Maalor, and I've seen no sign of the "Silicoids" that were hinted at in some of the fragmentary Artemis records - creatures capable of living naked on any planet, no matter how hostile. Thus, I decide to try and devise Improved Terraforming +10 technology to expand the living space on all my worlds. In addition to this possibility, and that of preparing to live on barren worlds, I had idly toyed with the notion of processing factory waste more swiftly, but though this would have been a terrific idea on Kholdan for any number of reasons, I decided to put it aside for a while, as Maalor's resources make terraforming the most valuable technology - as well as the quickest to research - that I can conceive. The more Klackons I can fit on that planet, the better!

[RefSteel]

As I finish developing Maalor's industrial infrastructure, even before the last few transports arrive from Kholdan (Maalor is fully populated in 2315, with all the factories its Klackons can operate already waiting for the final million arrivals) work begins on a new starship design, named after the most important of the many passengers each will carry: The Hive Queen!

While the first is being finished, I turn my thoughts to the matter of improving our factories. I can't figure any easy way to improve the rate of construction on Kholdan and our many worlds-to-be, so I will instead start work on an improvement to the factories we have, to cut down their emissions drastically.



My scientists feel a little bit uncomfortable with this, the way an individual Klackon's arm feels uncomfortable when it's sitting in the wrong position, but there's some good in it anyway - though far more complicated to develop than terraforming, Reduced Waste 80% will provide yet another boost to Maalor's productivity. Besides, my other scientists are very comfortable: I could make a breakthrough at any moment in propulsion!

My first Hive Queen ship arrives at Kholdan - I have them heading there from Maalor the moment each one is complete - but it will wait around for a year, briefly delaying our Omicron colony for the chance of speeding the one at Artemis! With another Hive Queen already complete and on its way, Kholdan's will depart for somewhere next year no matter what; I'm just hoping it gets to head for the ocean planet of my dreams!

Believe it or not, I think my opening was too normal for this setup, and therefore slower than it had to be! Everything I spent on factories from 2303 (when I found and colonized Maalor) through 2305 (the last time Kholdan would do anything but research for a while) should have been spent to grow population instead, the faster to feed my "homeworld"! Later, I also went directly from factories to colony ship production instead of keeping a portion of Maalor's anual budget on industry, for enough reserves to keep it fully "fed" each year. The latter course would have sped up overall colony ship production significantly without even delaying the first! I finally corrected this after the construction of my second colony ship ... still a good decade "early," in 2318!

[RefSteel]

As the secrets of Deuterium continue to elude us, my first Hive Queen departs for Omicron with its millions of Klackons and their queen, even as I begin to sense a chance for a breakthrough in planetology. Two years later, the second Hive Queen follows the first. Maalor has already finished its third, about to arrive at Kholdan, and is now just mining its incredible resources, both using them to power and maintain its own infrastructure and shipping them out to Kholdan. It will continue to supply Kholdan's mineral and energy needs, and those of our new colonies, for years to come - especially at Artemis, if we can only learn to fuel our Hive Queens with deuterium! The ships, not the lovely ladies. You know what I mean. In the meantime, though ... did I mention new colonies?



Omicron is the first world that my Klackon people settle as a single, united entity - the first of very, very many!

The very next year, I finally figure out how to make Deuterium Fuel Cells work properly! You wouldn't have thought it, but apparently the deuterium stops leaking out into its housing if you use a container without holes in it! This brilliant discovery suggests just countless possibilities, and I ruminate upon them while setting the experimental and theoretical scientists among my Klackons to work on a new project: Our efficient new deuterium cells should make it possible to modify our ships' engines and achieve still greater power! Nuclear Engines in particular are a highly intriguing option, and I believe we'll also someday be able to rig a ring of external engine ports to enhance small-scale maneuverability, effectively stabilizing the ship through even extreme shifts in inertia. Understand, I see no actual purpose in stabilizing my ships this way, nor any need for extra maneuverability ... but you have to admit, the concept is intriguing. Even before I start work on new engine tech however, I reach my Kholdan Hive Queen out for Artemis! My Atlantis shall live and rise again!

Great news! Just as I hoped, my extraordinay concept of "containers without a million holes in them" proves to have utility even outside of Deuterium! Apparently, all the designer chemicals, bioengineered seeds, and heat pump fuel and microcomponents I had devised for terraforming can be safely transported to their intended sites if they are carried in something other than a giant sieve! I can now terraform my planets (and will begin almost immediately) ... and begin to work on new projects in every field of research! I must consider: If our reflector dishes were solid curves instead of mere spiderwebs of metal in empty space, might they become more sensitive instruments, able to detect more at longer range? If so, we'll soon develop superior Deep Space Scanner technology! (The same thing applied to interference transmitters would have helped with ECM1, but there's no need to fear enemy missiles when everyone you know is already a part of your own brain!) If we duplicate the Artemis shield generators a little more exactly, instead of drilling aesthetically-pleasing holes through what seem like they might be "nonessential" components of our own, maybe we could boost them in effectiveness, and use them as Class III Deflector Shields! And if we can build colony domes that actually form complete seals, perhaps the air won't escape, and Controlled Dead Environment will become a possibility! There is something to be said for just improving our terraforming techniques still more, or taking a short detour either to control barren environments or to improve our pollution cleanup technology, but I'll be reducing factory waste by other means anyway, and I do prefer when possible to reach for state-of-the-art knowledge I couldn't have achieved before, and of a type that wouldn't immediately render my latest tech obsolete. This may be the wrong move in this case, but at least I have reasons.

Of course, there's something to be said for Death Spores too, but that something is, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!" Believe me, I never came up with the toxic things, even in idle speculation - there may have been wars in Klackon history, hive-on-hive, before we were united, but nothing so horrible as these bioweapons was ever conceived. It was in the exploration of Artemis that some of my Klackons uncovered ancient, fragmentary records of some terrible event in another world's past, an event whose nature I could neither understand nor believe until I developed my latest technology: If chemicals, biomass, and heat pumps were devised to perform "anti-terraforming" functions, precisely opposite to those I just invented, then pumped forcefully into a planet's atmosphere and introduced onto its surface, they could have a devastating impact on the planet's population - bringing them slow, painful, and horrible deaths - and even upon its habitability. I shudder to think that anyone could have used such devices even against their bitterest enemies - it is clear from the records that the Artemisians themselves utterly reviled the things - but it seems certain that someone not only built but deployed them; I wonder if they might even be the cause of what I find on Artemis, its inexplicably standing structures and even functioning shields, all alike crumbled by time and disuse as if all its people simultaneously vanished without a trace. Thankfully, there are no signs of any such weapons' residue on the surface, and the continued existence of marine and maritime life of all varieties, together with a peculiar tidiness to the artifacts of the ancient Artemisian civilization, suggests that the passing of their people from their world was neither so sudden nor so painful as might have been the case with death spores, though it was surely as absolute. The cause remains a mystery, and one I must unravel, lest it happen again, to me! Even now, in case some terrible and ancient sea monster should be the cause, arising from the deeps, I begin to consider yet another technological pursuit: The miniaturization of the old hives' most advanced weapons of war to function as Hand Lasers - it seems a much simpler and potentially more useful project than finding a way to mount the things in nests aboard star ships and coordinating their fire in a "gatling" array ... but then, anything seems more useful than "gatlings" to me!

[RefSteel]

I have another banner year in 2327, as Primodius joins the fold, my Scouters touch the beautiful worlds of Herculis, Vox, and Gion, while Maalor begins work on Hive Queens once again, so quickly that the first is already on its way to Primodius the following year - a year that will be forever remembered in Klackon history!



At a red star near to Artemis, and nearer still to the center of the galaxy, one of my Scouters encounters a monstrous ship of terrible destructive power. We could detect no life signs aboard, but the ship reacted to our presence immediately and automatically. It is named "Guardian," and if it seeks to guard the secrets of the star system in which it lies, it does so swiftly, efficiently, and without mercy. My Scouter is destroyed almost immediately. I pray this Guardian is set only to guard that system indeed, for if it were to set out along the path whence our Scouter came, it could rampage across all my worlds, and we would have no hope of the slightest resistence. Even Maalor could never build enough defenses to hold out for a single battle against its devastating weaponry. What new mystery is this ancient ship, its form almost Klackon in nature, with vast pincer claws and differentiated abdomen and all the rest, designed for pure destruction even in the absence of any crew, this invincible Guardian? With its automatic and inevitably destructive reactions, we have no hope of ever learning from the ship itself or the system it protects ... but perhaps, if enough records survive and can be unearthed, we may learn something from another world nearby. For 2328 is also the year in which Artemis receives its first Klackon queen! Millions swarm once more through the abandoned cities of Artemis, building new shielded infrastructure on the world's ocean bottoms and coral reefs, leaving the old, no doubt far-superior buildings intact so I might examine them without risk of damage in the course of attempted restoration. My two million Klackons are itching to get their pincers on the beautiful ancient cities and the secrets they contain, but I must prepare the world first, and go about my studies carefully - and in the meantime, they can work and swim and dive and play among enchanting varieties of ocean life in the world's abundant seas! More than 20 million Kholdan's Klackons meanwhile are permitted to depart at once, much to the pleasure of each and of all of me, to help build up our new Atlantis, and discover its mysteries! And then, in 2330, with Maalor still turning out Hive Queens at an incredible rate, one of my Scouters reaches the yellow star nearest the heart of the galaxy. Where I hoped to find an alien civilization, perhaps with secrets to share about the history of the galaxy, certainly with millions of people to join with me in friendship, I find instead the beautiful garden world of Crius, so lovely that I send a Hive Queen immediately. And still I have seen no sign of any other living species. There is no longer any doubt: I am not merely the most powerful entity and species, nor the one with the greatest potential. With the exception of the Guardian itself, and perhaps what it conceals, I am the only power of any significance in the modern galaxy!

[RefSteel]

Maalor builds its last Hive Queen (for a little while at least) - which happens to also be the fifth it has produced in a five year span! I produce a pair of new Scouters there to continue exploring the galaxy while my Hive Queens gather in the stars I can already reach. Sadly, I had dispatched one of the others too thoughtlessly and hastily, and so in 2333...



...another Scouter confirms that the Guardian is still unfriendly. At least this suggests that it truly doesn't leave that mysterious star system ... but I won't be sending any more of my Scouters to their deaths there, believe me! This is a time to envy the lesser peoples of the galaxy, who each think as a single organism with a single brain - whose emperors have the luxury of blaming their subordinates for stupid mistakes! I have no subordinates who are not part of me, an so instead of assigning blame, I must accept responsibilty.

Oopsie.

There's plenty of good news to cheer me up though - me and all who are of me! A ludicrously simple modification to my factories - I need only adjust the output valves of the N-positive neuro-electric field receptors to resonance with the ionic plasma conduction cores while compensating for the variance in localized micropressures in our deuterium reprocessing nodes by dynamic reallignment of the associated nuclear centrifuge banks - will cut waste products by twenty percent! Needless to say, I implement the changes in all my factories immediately. This change is so simple, and so obvious, it occurs to me that I could probably cut the cost of factory construction by the same amount simply by redesigning our entire factory structure to make most efficient use of the new improvements! Perhaps there are a few details to work out first, such as how and where to even begin, but I'm convinced that Improved Industrial Tech 8 is right around the corner anyway!

At the same time, one of my Scouters reaches Arietis, a world that's toxic to carbon-based life but with a greater wealth of minerals and energy sources than nearly any other planet I've seen - "nearly" because of course it's still blown away by my homeworld of Maalor! The so-called "Silicoids" mentioned briefly in one of the few surviving records from Artemis would be able to inhabit the place without trouble, but we have seen no sign of them, nor indeed of any other living species ... and I swear now that Arietis shall be mine someday!

And even as I say that...



I encounter a Scout ship belonging to an ape-like race called the Hew-Mince or something equally violent-sounding and primitive, at the gorgeous jungle world of Kailis. You can see it here, retreating from the red star near the lower right-hand corner of the screen, in the general direction of the yellow stars surrounding my cursor - one of them is presumably its homeworld, but there's no telling if the others belong to other species. I sought to communicate with the pilot's primitive simian brain, but sadly, he fled into hyperspace before I could establish contact. Perhaps I shall have better luck next time I meet one of them. You can also see from this shot that Kholdan continues to fulfill its role as my first planet outside the homeworld: Researching while sending its Klackons off to help start up my newest colonies. It will go back to work on its infrastructure ... eventually. You can also see rich Arietis here, and the Scouter in orbit above Vox right nearby (Vox itself, like Gion, is just below the screen). In the meantime, I meet a Psilon Scout moments after that of the Hew-Mince, and it proves equally unwilling to stay and talk to me.



The neutron star from which the Psilons are departing is Ukko, a large but hostile world, and though the Psilons probably originate from one of the yellow stars on this screen, I can't tell which of the nearest two it might be. Also visible of course are desert Imra and the Guardian's star - both quite close to Artemis, which is some way past the left side of the screen. To give you some sense of where all this is happening, the circled, unexplored green star at the upper left corner of the screen is the same as the one I circled in the lower right hand corner of the Hew-Mince screen. Oh, and as you can see, Maalor is back to building Hive Queens - indeed, work on the one you can see in the queue just started this minute!

[RefSteel]

News does not trickle like a stream upon the surface; it waits silent and gushes to life all at once, like a geyser from the deeps of the earth. I meet star ships belonging to yet two more races, neither of which is any more willing to communicate than the Psilons or Hew-Mince. At the poisonous world of Neptunus, a Bulrathi Scout elects to flee from my lone Scouter ... as does a Colony Ship belonging to none other than the Silicoids! The presence of that ship, obviously intending to land on that world, only serves as further confirmation that they are the beings of which the Artemis fragment spoke, completely immune to the vagaries of their environment. And even as the aliens depart, as a Hive Queen makes planetfall upon the fertile plains of Herculis, something awakens in the ruins of Artemis! Some Klackons taking their ease in an ancient city - you might say I am twiddling them in thought as a single Klackon might twiddle its pincers - detect a strange noise from within one of the great buildings. I hurry them inside to see what is happening, and upon the wall of what appears to be a giant meeting chamber, I see a huge flat-screen display, lit up and functioning!



What can this mean? Someone, somewhere - perhaps some centuries-old automated scanner - is watching over the stars, with wide enough scope of vision to see the whole of the galaxy, and with intelligence enough to tell that our six Klackon worlds outnumber every other race's!

At the rate things were going, I thought I might be the only one to reach six colonies. Our start is just that ridiculous - and if I'd pulled a construction, planetology, or non-IS-propulsion tech from Artemis, it would be even more so! With Maalor as my "homeworld," I would even have welcomed RC3!

The message could be false, but to what purpose? Indeed, to what purpose if it's true? The message appears briefly, and is gone; it does not repeat, and the screen on which it was displayed falls dead. Had I not thought to record it, I would barely believe I had seen it! The temptation to approach the screen more closely, to examine its components and see if it can do more than display this brief message ... I resist. When I am ready to begin a thorough investigation of the planet's ruins, I shall do so. For now, I must wait, and perhaps puzzle out what the initials GNN mean - they seem innocuous, but may hold the heart of the secret to this display. Yet the message itself is cause for deep concern; whether or not alien beings yet possess worlds in similar numbers, the message appeared at the very moment when I formed my Herculis colony, bringing my sixth world to me. If nothing else, this GNN newsdroid or those that inform it have been watching me!



Here is my corner of space - what the newsdroid calls my "empire." Tellingly, this is the last year you'll be able to see it all on a single screen at this resolution. In 2338, already scenting the end of my quest for nuclear engines, I colonize Gion as well; I have Klackons stationed in the Artemis meeting room with the screen at all times so as to miss nothing that appears there, but it does not react to my seventh world - nor to anything else in the next few years, even including my two latest, most coreward colonies, both formed in 2341, simultaneously!



You can see three waves of my transports already en route to beautiful, lush Gion from poor Primodius - with so many planets in proportion to my population, I am using Primodius mostly as a breeding ground; it doesn't have enough mineral resources to justify factory infrastructure while it can grow highly-efficient Klackon workers with equal effort - and greater pleasure! - and while Klackons are still so desperately needed to start up my new colonies! On the whole, these are quiet years, but the galaxy's other races are not to be forgotten; indeed, in 2342, my Scouter at the fiery world of Ryoun meets yet another Silicoid colony ship, ready to plunk down its people upon the active volcanic surface, but not prepared to deal with a small, friendly Klackon star ship. Before I can make contact, like every other alien ship I've encountered, it flees.

No, those who are with us must not be forgotten - but neither must those who are gone! With the completion of our new Artemis infrastructure last year, we have finally begun to examine that which the Artemisians themselves left behind. The still-functioning viewscreen shows much promise, and I examine it carefully, open its access ports, test its controls, and look into its inner workings, recording everything with deliberate care lest I unwittingly cause some portion to come to harm. The mechanism is not so easily damaged though - its hermetically sealed, hardened casing and redundant, apparently self-healing circuits have survived centuries of neglect already - and its function is now apparent to me. The screen itself is a simple two-dimensional display of course, but it is connected to a powerful computer core as thoroughly reinforced and protected as the screen itself - it has the feel of military hardware, battle-ready - and to a what can only be a massive and highly selective receptor antenna that virtually fills the building's core, providing its structural stability as well as access to distant signals from the stars. There is nothing else resembling a sensor suite, so the source of the "GNN" report must be elsewhere, another surviving artifact or race of ancient times, still transmitting on a frequency this station was designed to receive. The rest of the computer's depths are deeply complex, and will require years of study, but it is a pleasure to have something so advanced - and still functioning! - to study at liesure this way!

[RefSteel]

I have only the last kinks to work out of my new planetology, propulsion, and weapons designs! Some of my largest and most powerful beetle Klackons are actually capable of lifting the latest Hand Laser prototypes for seconds at a time, and I'm confident I'll soon find a way to make room within my dead-world colony bases not only for their needed life support equipment, but for the Klackons they're supposed to be supporting! And as for my warp 2 engine prototypes, they're going up in thermonuclear fireballs much less frequently! All of this is wonderful news, especially as one of my Scouters just discovered Bootis, a world up near what I take to be Hew-Mince space, but outside their sphere of influence, as rich in minerals as Arietis, but much larger and more nearly habitable; as soon as I can work out these last little kinks, I'll be able to add it to my collection of beautiful stars! Already, Gion's lesser neighbor, Vox, is welcomed into my embrace.

Two years later, one of my Scouters finds Sol, a planet so thoroughly developed that it must be the Hew-Mince homeworld; had their age of space travel begun long enough ago for one of their colonies to build 168 factories, we would surely have encountered them far sooner than we did. Having come to the very doorstep of the Hew-Mince home, I hope to finally make contact with them, but the hope is vain; they have a worrisome aptitude for living up to their name, with eight missile bases in place on their planet's surface, all of which fire upon my harmless Scouter as soon as it appears, forcing me to make like an alien and flee. I hope this threatening behavior does not extend indefinitely, but for now, it occupies little of my attention; examination of what must have been spaceport facilities on the surface of Artemis has suggested some simple modifications to my plans for nuclear engines and hand lasers, and prototype models of each are now working flawlessly! Better still, what I take to be a spaceport repair facility holds what I can only deduce are plans for ancient starships, some of which used Sublight Engines even swifter than those I just developed, and something called dotomite to extend their range. My fleets are the life-blood of my star-spanning self, and the faster they move, the healthier I'll be, so I concentrate on the sublight designs, not forgetting to examine the maintenance logs for defensive systems; Neutron Pellet Guns seem much simpler devices than Ion Cannons, and so I begin to study their construction too ... just in case the Hew-Mince continue to live up to their name!

Yet two years more, and research in what must once have been a hydroponics lab opens the way to the development of any planet more hospitable than fiery Ryoun - and suggests moreover that not only Ryoun, but even toxic worlds like Arietis might be tamed in time! I fear I'm proceeding too quickly though; in spite of our reduced waste levels, pollution cleanup remains a laborious process on all my worlds, and with no better methods at hand than those I originally conceived, I return to the matter of Improved Eco Restoration that I put aside so many years ago. Colony bases for toxic worlds would be nice to have, certainly, but we're struggling just to maintain the worlds we already have, with many more to come!



Here you see most of the worlds (Imra is well off the screen to the right) that I currently claim outside my homeworld of Maalor, and the floods of Klackon transports crossing the galaxy - a fairly typical scene for this period. I've been sending small numbers of transports in each wave to ensure that the source worlds don't drop too low in population. Also visible of course, officially in the ship queue at Primodius, though that world will never build one (or any other ship) is my latest star ship design. How do you resurrect a dead world? Send in a live Klackon queen! Naturally, these ships carry our new controlled dead colony bases, nuclear engines, and deuterium tanks. You can see the relocation route here for the first to be built: Maalor will send one up to Bootis by way of Gion.

The rate of discovery we have made since settling Artemis is astounding, but perhaps most telling are two things we have been utterly unable to find. The Artemisians were a deeply cultured, peaceful people; their surviving art is astonishing in its scope and creativity, from static and kinetic sculpture to shapings of light and shadow to literary texts and trimensional and tetramensional holographs that have survived the centuries in environmentally sealed computer facillities far beyond the scope of anything I had ever dreamed possible. The very architecture of their cities - spires and domes and shapes of purest beauty, melding form and function seamlessly - is awe-inspiring. And yet in all this treasure-trove of artwork, I have found not a single instance of an Artemisian's likeness - neither in sculpture nor in detailed description. I have had to rely on the shapes and locations of control panels and maintenance panels, and on scanty information surviving unprotected in otherwise heavily-encrypted medical databases as we discover the few not destroyed by passing years, to piece together an image of what the Artemisians must have looked like ... and what I have pieced together is hard to believe! They were ungainly amphibious creatures, arthropods like outselves, but with bulkier antennae, stretching out like spikes from their backs instead of their heads, with several eyes on long, articulated stalks, and short, thick arms with gigantic clawlike pincers, moving ponderously about on stubby, scaly legs. It is difficult to properly describe the sheer ugliness of the picture I have formed of these creatures - and as I find more and more of their artwork without a single representation of their own forms, I begin to wonder: Is it possible they found themselves as hideously repulsive as they seem to me?

While pondering the possibility that a race could loathe its own appearance, I have other matters of still greater moment to occupy me: We have had trouble digging through the Artemis computer systems, mostly because of the ravages of time, partly because of files encrypted in the time when the Artemisians lived - such as medical records apparently kept secret for privacy reasons - but especially in some of the areas that interest me most, such as the final period of their history, data appears to have been purged from the computer banks deliberately! I shall have to study it more closely, and even this bare assertion could only be made after years of study, but all the signs are there, and I do not know what it means. Who can have purged the files, and when ... and perhaps most importantly, why? If the people of Artemis were murdered, and their murderers are still at large, the motive would be clear enough ... but I shudder to think that such a thing is possible!

[RefSteel]

May the Triad awaken in your time, with no need of trust in the Lone.

2349-54: The First Signs
I colonize the beautiful jungle world of Kailis, its rainbow-feathered birds calling over the heads of my Klackons as I assemble my first habitations among the lush greenery, and at long last, projecting my thoughts through my two million Klackons on Kailis, I am able to reach other peoples: Peoples of the Lone, who each have themselves only, and share none of their thoughts except through action and speech with even their closest family. By the very nature of their loneness, they are beings rife with secret jealousies, and even as we first meet, the Hew-Mince are discordant and Silicoids uneasy with me - no doubt in dread and envy of my widespread reach - but I hope to show them the path of trust and peace and safety, so that even alone, they can come as close as any lonely being can to happiness.



Our new 25 BC annual trade with Emperor Sedimin and his Silicoids is a mere pittance, but hopefully enough to build trust between us, as I prove my good intentions in such other ways as I can. Sadly, the suspicious, aggressive technologist might be difficult to convince, at least in the early years.



There was no GNN report when the Silicoids reached 6 systems, or at least none displayed on the Artemis screen. They are yet to achieve their seventh though; we'll see how many more they manage to reach. You may notice one of my Scouters near my cursor, approaching Cryslon - another, right at the center of the triangle comprising Kailis, Misha, and Rayden, is on its way to the Rayden colony as well - a fact which will no doubt cause the Silicoids distress, though I could not have known when those ships departed that the planets in question were inhabited. You can also see in this picture that Kailis, though just founded, is already receiving its first shipment of minerals and energy crystals to help it build its infrastructure as rapidly as possible. I would be heartbroken if anything happened to that lovely jungle world, and it's my nearest colony to two of the Lone!



The second is of course the Humans (for reasons that escape me, this is their preferred spelling of the name) whose ambassador is arriving at Kailis even now. It appears that they reside at all three of the yellow stars where I supposed they might ... but only those yellow stars! Also notice their position relative to Kailis and therefore the Silicoid stars. (You can also see that I am re-examining Bootis, as I am so fond of doing - I can't wait to add this world's riches to my Klackons' supply!)

Their ambassador is wearing flamboyant clothing and a silly hat, of which he appears inordinately proud. He shouts, "Hey there!" loudly enough to be heard back on Sol, introduces himself as Jimbo Trustmeonthisone and reaches out his hand.
Uncertain of how to respond to this gesture, I similarly reach out with one of my Klackon's pincers as I tell him through that Klackon, "I am Reflexive Biological Organism #11, RBO-11. I am all Klackons, and all Klackons are myself."
He spreads his lips wide to show his teeth - reportedly a gesture of friendship, though this is hard to believe - and cries out, "Ref!" (Ref?) "Pleased to meecha!" while taking my pincer in what is obviously meant to be a crushing grip. My Klackon's chitin exoskeleton thwarts him of course, and I refrain from returning this part of the gesture, as his meaty hand would then require surgery. ("Ref"? Seriously?) He claims that Lasitus is an "honorable industrialist," and proceeds to tell a long and intensely boring story about Human history. I barely pay enough attention to him to get the holotransmitter codes to reach Lasitus and perform actual diplomacy. I can already see that this relationship is going to be ... interesting. My local Klackons lead Jimbo off to a comfortable room with padded walls, where I will cycle them through periodically so no one has to be subjected to his conversation for long - no one except of course for me. Thankfully, I can send my thoughts elsewhere, and at once establish a small annual trade package with Lasitus - the least he would consider was 45 BC.

These trade deals are a hopeful sign; the Lone will see that we mean friendship truly, and that it is in their self-interest to preserve good relations and increasing trade with what will seem to them a vast and powerful empire. Our friendly intentions will be manifest, and...



...
...
Well ... that didn't take long. The ink hasn't dried on our trade contract. The "time after time" that they have "attempted to reason with us" has consisted of: 1) Saying hello, and 2) agreeing to a trade deal which I initiated - both occuring just last year!!! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the first action of one of the Lone would be to start a war with me. Jimbo regretfully departs, and we not-at-all-regretfully see him to his spaceship. Lasitus - honorably, I suppose - decapitates my ambassador in a gruesome public ceremony. Inxitylixiys 978343 is not truly lost however; like all Klackons who perish, he lives on as part of me.

I would like to find a way to prosecute this war with minimum loss of Klackon or Human life, to bring a swift resolution and restore peaceful relations. This will require a great deal of deep thought ... but sadly, I can't be bothered. I'm busy thinking about the Humans' clothing.

The Humans' disgust with their own forms is significant, though nothing in comparison with that of the Artemisians. The people of our Atlantis designed extraordinarily beautiful costumes, masks, and clothing of all kinds, always all-concealing - in the past few years, I have even seen historical examples of Artemisian weapons of war which, apparently in an attempt to make them terrifying, shared certain characterisitcs with Artemisian anatomy. The Humans do not go this far, but to judge by their most popular forms of artwork (many of which are apparently meant to sell clothing or something called "beer") the amount of clothing that is considered appropriate is inversely proportional to the Human's beauty. "Delia Hotstuff," an obviously important individual, though I can't discern her role in society apart from posing for beer-related art pieces, habitually wears almost nothing, even or especially in art meant specifically to praise a line of clothing. Lasitus, by contrast, always appears in a full-dress uniform, for reasons I'm sure you can understand if you've seen him.

My first spy report on the Humans indicates that completely ignoring their war effort is probably the right move, as their ships can't reach Kailis and seem to be armed with slingshots throwing wads of old chewing gum, so I just press on with my research and colonization efforts. Dissecting a number of rusting Artemis maintenance droids helps me improve my factory building efficiency in 2351, and also dovetails with my cultural research to suggest a means of building "costumes" that would protect against environmental contaminants and Human attacks (even large wads of chewing gum)! I just hope I never need to test that last use for these "Battle Suits " - but I'll want them if the need arises! Then, in 2353....



It's good to see the ancient viewscreen is still functioning, and that the GNN droid is still transmitting, even if it only ever talks about me. Better still, I was able to trace the signal! The GNN message appeared on-screen just as the receiver antenna and interpretation array sprang to life behind it, all in response to a single tightly-encrypted burst transmission from somewhere near the center of the galaxy. I still haven't managed to decipher the encryption, even now that I know what its final form will be, but I was able to triangulate from sensors at all my dozen worlds, and confirm that the source of the transmission was at the red star indicated near the middle of the screen ... a red star I recognize all too well! I had assumed the "G" in GNN stood for "Galaxy" ... but could it be the Guardian itself that's making these transmissions? And if so, might it be possible to communicate with it by some other means than battle? I can only hope.

With the Silicoids feeling better about me, I suggest that we increase our trade agreement to 75 BC per year, the most they can handle for the time being ... and then come across something deeply intriguing in a forgotten computer core on Artemis: With the same language as our ancient legends, it refers to the "Birth of the Triad" in what can only be 2300! Moreover, it identifies two other key years - 75 and 150 years after the "Birth" respectively - as the "Rise of the Triad" and the "Great Reckoning!" I at once seek deeper knowledge of the Rise of the Triad, now less than four hexades away, but it's slow going; I see only confusing references to something called "Dog Mode" and mystical objects called "Shrooms." These are clearly glitches in the data caused by the loss of centuries; their true intended meaning will probably never be known.

Heh. I remember watching my college roommate play Rise of the Triad. (I commonly misclick when playing strategy games! First-person shooters are ... not my strength. But I was happy to watch others play at that age!) I miss the days when even FPS games were able to laugh at themselves consistently - before they became a massive, graphics-driven, multi-zillion dollar industry. Uh ... not that this has anything to do with the Klackons, obviously. But do I get my bonus points?

There is no reference to which stars compose the triad, though I think I could deduce it from the ancient Klackon legends if I set my mind to it - and I might try! I imagined in 2300 that other races might take note of the same phenomenon we did, but I had no idea that a centuries-dead race would have had any interest in the matter, and call it by the same name as ours! It appears that the triad represents three stars of mythological importance (to us - their importance to Artemis, I can't divine) - one red, one green, and one yellow - and that its birth represents the beginning of their linear alignment in the eons-long galactic cycle; the period of nearest alignment lasts a full 25 Hexades - 150 years - but I'll have to review the legends again to be sure of anything more.