Song of the Void

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”This seems like the obvious time to ask, but how did the Dhar usually handle encounters with local species when entering a new galaxy?” Miyo questioned as they found themselves a peaceful place to talk.

"There were certain guidelines, but in the end, it was always up to the ranking officer on the scene. That would usually be the captain of the arkship. You have to keep in mind though, that most of the time we did not run into as many spacefaring races as you would think. And even when we did, they were often much less advanced than the Mrrroww or even the Illum are today. We were among the first intelligent races to develop, as far as we know, and the subsequent development of intelligent life was eased by the fact that we terraformed so many worlds to be suitable for life. Many of the current races also got a bit of a push by finding some of our old technology, which was not available back then of course.” Selendil explained.

“But you were still a warrior race that fought many enemies. Surely they weren’t all pushovers?” Miyo pointed out.

“No, of course not. Even if we were among the first, it took a long time for us to expand over so many galaxies. Other races eventually developed as well. I simply meant that the number was lower than it would be today, and it was not all that odd for a new galaxy to have no spacefaring races when we arrived. We did run into some galaxy-spanning empires of course, and those were the most interesting enemies to fight. But you asked about how we dealt with them. The standard method was to announce that we were now the dominant race in the galaxy and that we were taking over. They would not be enslaved and would even benefit from the deal, but the fact remained that we were now in charge.” Selendil reminisced.

"I'm guessing not everyone took that well," Miyo said with an amused smile.

“No, no they didn’t. Few races like to be under someone’s control. Many tried resisting, but usually a simple show of our superiority was enough to deter them. By the time they got over the initial shock and defeat, they’d usually spent enough time under our control that they didn’t find it such a bad deal after all. Our actions with the locals were in large part determined by their reaction to us. If they reacted with hostility, they got what they ordered. If they reacted with peace and acceptance, they usually benefitted greatly from the deal.” Selendil tapped her chin with a finger.

“If you recall, we talked about our dealings with the client races before. We largely ignored them, but some Dhar liked to develop them as well. They wouldn’t just hand them technology, but we would help them in developing their own, sometimes nudging them in the right direction in other ways as well. We elevated several species from a rather dire situation to a spacefaring status if we saw great potential in them. Usually that was about the limit though. After that, they had to handle things themselves." She finished with a nod, indicating that she had said what she would on the subject.

Miyo still had one question though. “Did the Dhar ever regret basically invading other galaxies? Many would consider the countless deaths a high price to pay.”

Selendil shook her head. The other woman would not understand. “No. We were a warrior people. War was just a way of life for us. Some galaxy-spanning civilization that suddenly got reduced to a shadow of its former glory came off worse of course, but for the most part, war is a great driver of development. Struggle creates great people. Easy times create stagnation and weakness. There was also the fact that we considered ourselves to be above others. Nearly all races consume and exploit species they consider lesser. We considered other intelligent species lesser. That didn't mean we took pleasure in their suffering, but we didn’t really care about it either, to be frank.”

“Alright, time for something lighter for a change. What did the Dhar do for fun?” Miyo switched topics.

“Oh, that’s a rather broad topic. There was the Great Song of course. Aside from that, I believe we did many of the same things others did. We had art, games, hobbies, and we celebrated in our own ways. We battled and we developed ourselves, yes for fun. We had plenty of ways to socialize. And there were the more carnal ways of enjoying ourselves as well. Those that excelled at bringing pleasure to others were actually very highly regarded professionals in our society. I’ve noticed that you and many other races look down on such things, but I think that’s a matter of values.” Selendil listed.

“What do you mean by bringing pleasure to others?” Miyo asked, noticing that she might have hit a small jackpot. Amaterasu would be pleased.

“Well, that could take many forms. There’s the most basic sexual level, which is an art in itself. There are intellectual ways of bringing pleasure, such as being an exceptional conversationalist that can engage others in ways that you wouldn’t believe. They can make you feel truly listened to. Then there’s the ability to create substances that can bring new experiences and pleasure. You might have noted that alcohol and other such substances don’t work on you with the new nanites. There are ways around that, though it isn’t easy to do. The most specialized pleasure professionals can also use psionics to either just make you feel pure ecstasy, or if they’re real experts, make you live your greatest dreams in realistic dreams and hallucinations. Those were always the most valued among the Dhar. They could help you discover new dreams and fantasies that you didn’t even know you had, which allowed you to reach happiness that you didn’t even know you wanted.” Selendil smiled at the memory.

“I’m going make a guess here that as a Keeper you might have preserved the skills and knowledge of some professionals of that nature. Does that mean you also possess their skills?” Miyo asked almost eagerly.

“Theoretically. I have the ability, but I’ve never used it. Although I can adopt most difficult skills by absorbing the experience of the user, working with the mind is very delicate stuff. Even a slight mistake can turn a dream into a nightmare after all. I would need a bit of practice to get a real hang of it, but I should be able to handle the lower-level stuff relatively easily." Selendil speculated. "The problem is that it's not just a matter of skills. These kinds of abilities require a certain kind of mindset and personality. It's all about empathy, caring, and the desire to have the other person to enjoy themselves.”

“But you could do it, say if someone on the crew wanted to test it?” Miyo kept asking, for completely scientific and altruistic reasons.

“Sure.” Selendil sensed some of Miyo’s thoughts and decided to tease her a bit. “Here’s the thing though. The real question isn’t whether I could do it or not, but would I?”

“I mean, you did say it was a respected and highly regarded profession, right?” Miyo tried feebly.

“I did. But it’s not my profession.” Selendil’s tails made a gesture that was the equal to grinning.

“W…we’ll get back to that.” Miyo cleared her thoughts. She needed to come up with some proper reason. Perhaps Amaterasu could help? “Why do you think the profession was respected among the Dhar but not among other races?”

"I think it's just a straight function of the level of skill required. Among your species, the ones that bring pleasure seem to fall into two categories. Those that are relatively low skill and not very well regarded, and those that have very specialized skills that are famous and rich due to their skills, such as certain artists and actors. Many don’t think about it but artists are in the field of bringing…well, perhaps not pleasure but emotions and experiences. Among your kind, those that bring pure pleasure have not honed their skills to a rarified and extreme level, and as a result, they are looked down on. Among the Dhar, those people are among the most skilled and trained individuals. It’s also a fact that as the level of technology in a society rises, the value of the ability to bring pleasure rises as well, but so do the demands on the quality and type of pleasure.” Selendil speculated.

“Huh. That’s not a bad theory. I suppose it’s also an attitude thing, but those attitudes are informed by what you mentioned. If we think that almost anyone is capable of doing it, we don’t value it highly.” Miyo agreed.

“It’s a bit more than that though. Some races place more value on pleasure. On the other hand, some races think most forms of pleasure are a sin of some sort, living ascetic lives instead. The Dhar were rather hedonistic in some ways, at least in comparison. Part of that was the result of our warrior culture causing us to live to the fullest, but the presence of the Unity also added to it. When many of the pleasures can be shared with anyone willing to take part and join their mind with yours…” Selendil left the implications hanging in the air.

"Sharing is caring," Miyo said, almost without realizing it.

"That's a very liberal attitude," Selendil said, her tails once again making the grin-like gesture. “Not one shared by most I suspect.”

“That brings up an interesting point. Dhar seemed to have a relatively liberal view on sexuality. Care to go into more detail?” Miyo suggested.

“Well, I suspect that you’d have found many differing views on the subject if you had talked to enough Dhar. We were not some sort of monoculture that all held one single view. That said, I suppose our social norms were fairly liberal, though that depended a bit on which method was used.” Selendil tapped her chin in thought.

“Which method?” Miyo asked.

“Ah, right, you weren’t around to hear about it. Well, as energy beings and capable shapeshifters, the Dhar had two main methods of…shall we say having fun. Doing it in a physical form of some kind was just something done for fun, and almost everyone viewed that quite liberally. The other way of combining as energy beings was much more private and quite rarely done, except between truly committed partners.” Selendil gave a quick explanation.

“So did Dhar ever do the purely physical thing with other species?” Miyo asked. At this point Selendil started to suspect that a certain someone might have slipped that question in.

“Well, it wasn’t something talked about very often, but it happened. It wasn’t really viewed negatively as an act, but it did carry certain implications. How should I put this? The act itself was not frowned upon, and if you did it with another Dhar who transformed into the form of the other species, then there was no problem at all. Also doing it completely casually was relatively fine. It was viewed like most would view a kink that was a bit rare. Strange but harmless. Maybe even amusing or intriguing. The problem was getting deeply involved with a member of another, and in the eyes of most, lesser species. Calling it a taboo would be too strong of an expression, but it was frowned upon. The act sort of implied that you found that lesser being more worth a relationship than members of your own race. Some took a harder stance to that than others.” Selendil tried to express the complex social concept. It was hard to put millennia of unspoken rules into words.

“It might be insensitive of me to ask, but what about now? Your situation is a little different from back then, so…” The implication was rather obvious.

“It’s hard to say. Like you say, the situation is not the same. It’s not like I have a whole lot of options in a certain sense. There are no other Dhar anymore. So either I have to go with it, or I’ll have to forget that part of my life entirely. I’m not really fond of that idea either. A bit of fun is fine in my opinion, but I’m not sure I’ve resolved myself to anything serious. It’s hard to get over a life filled with certain social conditioning. It may happen, it may not. I’ll deal with it as it comes.” Selendil didn’t really have a firm answer for that.

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“I’ve got something!” Nochehuatl announced suddenly, drawing the attention of everyone on the bridge. Selendil’s little interview with Miyo had ended an hour ago, and they had been combing through the debris of the old battle. “They missed something. The ship was already disabled and most of the data was corrupt or destroyed, so whoever cleared this battlefield didn’t think to go through the wreckage.”

“Analyzing it now.” Nox announced as the piece of debris had been brought on board. “It’s a piece of one of the black ships. Most of the data is corrupted, but I’m able to recover some parts that allow me to try and piece some things together. I have also managed to compile decent language files for the black ships. The white ships seem to belong to a faction called the Confederation of Allied Systems, CAS for short. It seems they have a republic of sorts. There are references to thousands of systems having a seat in their legislative body, but I can’t tell if it’s divided by racial lines, or if it’s actually just systems. I can’t tell how many races there are, but I’m seeing references to at least several dozen. There’s some sort of position called the Suzerain, but I can’t tell if that’s a regional title or if it’s some kind of overlord. And that’s pretty much all of the useful data, unless you want reports on old battles.”

“What about the black ships?” Moonshadow asked. If the database belonged to them, then there should be more information on them.

“Most of that data is corrupted, but from what I gather, they are some sort of a rival group of allied races. Multiple races. They aren’t willing to be a part of the CAS, but I can’t tell what the ultimate cause of hostilities would be. It could be that the CAS doesn’t tolerate rivals, or it could be that the black ships belong to races that are all dicks.” Nox explained.

“Well, that’s something at least," Lilly said with a positive tone.

“Yes, but it’s not what we needed.” Xiaoli countered. “Selendil, I think we won’t have any luck here. We’ll just have to take the plunge and move on.”

“Agreed.” Selendil decided. They had wasted enough time here.

The phase jump to the next system took a bit of time as they had to proceed relatively carefully. They had no idea about the available phase lanes in the area, which had been a constant problem for them ever since they had started their galaxy hopping, but luckily their sensory systems allowed them to move at a relatively quick pace. Finally, they exited the phase space near a binary star with several orbiting planets. They noticed a few things immediately upon arrival. The first one was that the civilian ships of the CAS did indeed use phase travel. The second thing was that it didn't matter. It was likely that the description of their ship had been circulated, as almost as soon as they had arrived, a dozen large white ships similar to the ones they had seen before jumped near them.

The third thing they noticed was that the white ships were, in fact, jumping in some way. They were once again swallowed by curtains of energy and the ships appeared immediately on the other side of the system, which happened to be where the Enduring Symphony was. "Well, I guess stealth is not an option anymore," Xiaoli muttered.

“Nox, we need access to their language files if we are to open a conversation.” Moonshadow requested.

“Already on it. Giving the language files to the entire bridge crew this time.” Nox announced and all of them felt a sudden sharp pain as the knowledge was injected into their minds. The psions recovered much quicker than the rest.

“Ow! That really stings.” Xiaoli complained.

“Well, on the positive side, they aren’t shooting at us. Yet.” Amaterasu said with a small grimace of her own. She had gotten off lightly though. The process had been almost entirely painless for her and Moonshadow.

“They are powering their weapons though.” Nox pointed out. “They are also trying to hail us.”

"Get all of the data from them you can," Selendil ordered.

“I’m going to do my best, but their AIs aren’t bad. They actually handed me the language files once I reached for them, so I didn’t have to take them forcefully. They aren’t really willing to share much else though, and they will be able to sense my activities if I try to push too hard.” Nox grumbled. ‘Not bad’ was high praise from Nox when it came to the level of the opposing AI.

“Well, let’s see what they have to say.” Moonshadow decided.

“Patching them through. Audio only.” Nox said.

“I repeat this is Lightbringer Yrala of the CAS vessel ‘Moontide’ hailing the unidentified vessel. Respond or we will be forced to treat you as a hostile.” A distinctly female sounding voice came over the speaker.

“This is Moonshadow of the vessel Enduring Symphony, we hear you. We just needed to get the language problem sorted out first.” Moonshadow replied.

“Who doesn’t speak basic?” The woman seemed to ask a rhetorical question from her own crew, though the voice was carried over.

“Someone who isn’t from this galaxy Lightbringer.” Moonshadow replied even though the question was not addressed to her. The others were slightly surprised by her open admission of their origins.

“…I see. Should we take this as a hostile invasion then?” The woman asked.

“No.” Moonshadow replied immediately. “Not unless you make it into one. The only hostilities so far came as a result of your ships opening fire on us.”

“That doesn’t exactly match the report I got.” The disgruntled voice of the woman stated. It seemed she was a military officer, not a diplomat.

"We would be happy to provide you with a recording, but I'm sure your own ships could do that as well. We arrived in the middle of a battle between your forces and some black ships. The fighters from both sides fired on us, so we returned fire. Then your ships approached us and fired on us. We even gave them a warning shot at low power, but your people decided to take that as an excuse to escalate things. Finally, we destroyed one of your ships, which prompted the others to withdraw. I'd like to point out that we allowed them to leave unmolested and didn't even give chase. You may have lost a ship, but we’ve shown more than enough patience already." Moonshadow explained, but in a way that made it clear she was speaking from a position of power.

“Yeah, that definitely doesn’t match what I was told. I’m going to have to get back to you. In the meantime, I’m going to have to ask you to stay put.” The woman was clearly displeased. Either she had been lied to by their own forces, or she was being lied to by a dangerous potential enemy. Either way, the whole thing sucked.

“Lightbringer, before you go, could you instruct your AI to hand us some files on history and general knowledge? It would make things easier if we had some idea who we were dealing with.” Moonshadow requested.

“Fine.” The woman stated and cut the connection. Clearly not a diplomat or she would’ve at least asked them to do the same.

“I got the files.” Nox commented just seconds later.

“Well. We aren’t in a war yet.” Amaterasu stated.

“Give it time. The day is still young.” Xiaoli joked.