Let's Play The Ur-Quan Masters
<< | ^^ | >>
Chapter 5: Evil Mushrooms From Outer Space VS Amazon Women from Betelgeuse
Part 1: Meet the Syreen
If you think I'm kidding about that chapter title, then you haven't been paying attention.
Septermber 7, 2156
While the Ilwrath go on parade, we're going to go visit this star here. Sure it is not at all related to our chapter title.
Why, it's another Slave World! And another starbase!
HOLY FANSERVICE, BATMAN.
TALANA
Be Warned! This slave world and its inhabitants belong to the Ur-Quan. I am Starbase Commander Talana of the slave planet Gaia. Your ship is not responding to standard Hierarchy identification sequences. You are therefore classed as Independent, and... WHAT?!
Is my monitor display correct?! Is that a human commanding that vessel? Who are you?
((Side note: There are immense number of highly wacky options during this conversation. I'll be avoiding most of them, but I'll at least let you know what I COULD be saying.
ZELNICK
We're the Ethics Police. Justify that costume... Immediately!
I am Captain Zelnick of the flagship Vindicator.
TALANA
Hello, Captain. But you haven't answered my question fully. Why are you here? Where are you from? Has the slave shield been lifted from Earth? Are the Ur-Quan finally defeated?
Simply put, Captain... what do you want from us?
ZELNICK
What I need right now, is a Touch-o-Vision.
We have come here to free you from slavery to the Ur-Quan!
TALANA
Look, friend, I appreciate your offer, but we don't want your help.
Why? I'll tell you why: Because we're not going to do anything to antagonize the Ur-Quan. That's why. We may not like slavery, but it's a damn sight better than our alternatives. Below us we have a beautiful world... maybe it's not Syra, but at least it's a home. That's a lot more than we ever had before the War... before the Ur-Quan became our masters.
ZELNICK
So, Commander Talana, what are you diong here?
TALANA
When the Ur-Quan conquered us, over twenty years ago, I was only a young girl living in Habitat Thirty-One. My older sister, Diani, was a starship officer in the Space Patrol; she was part of the final defense at Raynet... she didn't make it back.
When the Ur-Quan caught us in open space, we all thought we were going to die... but then, instead of killing us, the Ur-Quan offered us a choice. We could join the ranks of their combat thralls, or we could be slave-shielded in our homeworld. Like the people of Earth, we chose peace. We became fallow slaves. When the Ur-Quan told us to return to our homeworld, we explained that we had none. Ur-Quan Master Nine explained that they had encountered this situation before, and if we would provide them with a list of our requirements, they would use their extensive astronomical datastores to find a planet for us!
So we told them about Syra... about the color of its sky... about the abundant lifeforms, about the fertility of the soil and seas. Less than an hour later, we received a terse message from Master Nine: We were to proceed to these coordinates and disembark. This was to be our new home. But our new world, Gaia, was everything we described. We'd been searching for a home planet for seventy-five years, and in the end, it was our enemies who gave one to us.
I grew up on a small island off the main continent, and like all of my people, we lived each day under the sick, red glow of the slave shield. When the Ur-Quan arrived seven years ago to refurbish and recrew the starbase, I was selected as the new commander.
ZELNICK
So what happened to you at the end of the war?
TALANA
When we first met your people, we'd been wandering through the stars for almost seventy-five years; ever since the death of Syra... our home planet. We joined the Alliance, and I use the word 'joined' loosely, because we had no other choice. The VUX were raiding our slow Habitat columns, and we had nowhere else to go. We fought for survival, Captain. Nothing more.
When your people on Earth were defeated, the Alliance just plain fell apart. The Yehat and Shofixti retreated to their native stars and didn't want us to follow. The Arilou, those creepy little weasels, just plain bugged out and vanished, leaving us alone with nowhere to go, smack in the path of the oncoming Ur-Quan Armada.
What were we supposed to do? Fight? Two-thirds of our Habitat fleet was unarmed! Many aren't even super-luminal. We were going to be annihilated if we resisted, and we knew it. When the Ur-Quan surrounded us and started giving orders that all ended with, 'Or Die!' we took them at face value. We obeyed.
In exchange, they gave us Gaia, the planet below. It's a beautiful world, Captain. I wish I could show it to you. So don't misunderstand me. We love our freedom as much as anybody else, but we've got a good life here, and we don't want to lose it.
ZELNICK
If you love freedom and hate the Ur-Quan, why don't you help us?
TALANA
Like I said before, Captain, we would like to help, but we are unwilling to risk losing Gaia. Unless you can find a much more compelling reason for us to get involved, you are on your own.
ZELNICK
What was Syra like?
TALANA
It was our paradice, Captain, our Eden. Earth is the only world we know of whose variety and richness of life eeven comes close to Syra. Again, like so many things about our two species, our worlds were very much the same, at least before you began encasing yours in concrete and plastic.
Syra's gravity was a bit lighter than Earth's and its day was fifty percent longer. Our diurnal cycle is therefore different from yours. We spend twenty hours awake, followed by ten hours... horizontal.
ZELNICK
What happened to Syra?
TALANA
This subject is very difficult for us, Captain, but I will try to recount those sad old days.
Like your solar system, ours had a large population of comets and asteroids. Large meteor impacts, though rare, were not unheard of on our planet. So it was not a total shock when an asteroid penetrated our atmosphere and hit the surface. What was odd was that unlike most other meteors, this one was not pulverized on impact. It penetarted the crust, and indeed went all the way through to the mantle, causing a 'super volcano'.
The earthquakes caused by the impact were severe. The magma pumped out of the caldera wreaked significant damage on the nearby terrain, but within a few weeks, it had cooled, forming a solid rock bandage over the wound.
Within a few months we had cleaned up the mess, the caldera was calming down nicely, and things were pretty much back to normal. Then, just over a year after the impact, all hell broke loose on the surface of Syra. Huge calderas were opening all over... not just around the meteor impact, but everywhere! The scope of the disaster is impossible to imagine. Entire cities sliding into oceans of molten lava... kilometer-wide sections of land pulverized by a cataclysmic explosion... and clouds of poison gas and superheated steam created a death shround around Syra.
ZELNICK
Come on now, isn't that outfit, knife included, a bit absurd?
Goodbye, Commander Talana. I will be back.
TALANA
Until then, Earthling.
That was a lot of exposition for one entry, so I think I'm gonna call it quits here.
NEXT TIME: Juffo-Wup.
<< | ^^ | >>
Chapter 5: Evil Mushrooms From Outer Space VS Amazon Women from Betelgeuse
Part 1: Meet the Syreen
If you think I'm kidding about that chapter title, then you haven't been paying attention.
Septermber 7, 2156
While the Ilwrath go on parade, we're going to go visit this star here. Sure it is not at all related to our chapter title.
Why, it's another Slave World! And another starbase!
HOLY FANSERVICE, BATMAN.
TALANA
Be Warned! This slave world and its inhabitants belong to the Ur-Quan. I am Starbase Commander Talana of the slave planet Gaia. Your ship is not responding to standard Hierarchy identification sequences. You are therefore classed as Independent, and... WHAT?!
Is my monitor display correct?! Is that a human commanding that vessel? Who are you?
((Side note: There are immense number of highly wacky options during this conversation. I'll be avoiding most of them, but I'll at least let you know what I COULD be saying.
ZELNICK
We're the Ethics Police. Justify that costume... Immediately!
I am Captain Zelnick of the flagship Vindicator.
TALANA
Hello, Captain. But you haven't answered my question fully. Why are you here? Where are you from? Has the slave shield been lifted from Earth? Are the Ur-Quan finally defeated?
Simply put, Captain... what do you want from us?
ZELNICK
What I need right now, is a Touch-o-Vision.
We have come here to free you from slavery to the Ur-Quan!
TALANA
Look, friend, I appreciate your offer, but we don't want your help.
Why? I'll tell you why: Because we're not going to do anything to antagonize the Ur-Quan. That's why. We may not like slavery, but it's a damn sight better than our alternatives. Below us we have a beautiful world... maybe it's not Syra, but at least it's a home. That's a lot more than we ever had before the War... before the Ur-Quan became our masters.
ZELNICK
So, Commander Talana, what are you diong here?
TALANA
When the Ur-Quan conquered us, over twenty years ago, I was only a young girl living in Habitat Thirty-One. My older sister, Diani, was a starship officer in the Space Patrol; she was part of the final defense at Raynet... she didn't make it back.
When the Ur-Quan caught us in open space, we all thought we were going to die... but then, instead of killing us, the Ur-Quan offered us a choice. We could join the ranks of their combat thralls, or we could be slave-shielded in our homeworld. Like the people of Earth, we chose peace. We became fallow slaves. When the Ur-Quan told us to return to our homeworld, we explained that we had none. Ur-Quan Master Nine explained that they had encountered this situation before, and if we would provide them with a list of our requirements, they would use their extensive astronomical datastores to find a planet for us!
So we told them about Syra... about the color of its sky... about the abundant lifeforms, about the fertility of the soil and seas. Less than an hour later, we received a terse message from Master Nine: We were to proceed to these coordinates and disembark. This was to be our new home. But our new world, Gaia, was everything we described. We'd been searching for a home planet for seventy-five years, and in the end, it was our enemies who gave one to us.
I grew up on a small island off the main continent, and like all of my people, we lived each day under the sick, red glow of the slave shield. When the Ur-Quan arrived seven years ago to refurbish and recrew the starbase, I was selected as the new commander.
ZELNICK
So what happened to you at the end of the war?
TALANA
When we first met your people, we'd been wandering through the stars for almost seventy-five years; ever since the death of Syra... our home planet. We joined the Alliance, and I use the word 'joined' loosely, because we had no other choice. The VUX were raiding our slow Habitat columns, and we had nowhere else to go. We fought for survival, Captain. Nothing more.
When your people on Earth were defeated, the Alliance just plain fell apart. The Yehat and Shofixti retreated to their native stars and didn't want us to follow. The Arilou, those creepy little weasels, just plain bugged out and vanished, leaving us alone with nowhere to go, smack in the path of the oncoming Ur-Quan Armada.
What were we supposed to do? Fight? Two-thirds of our Habitat fleet was unarmed! Many aren't even super-luminal. We were going to be annihilated if we resisted, and we knew it. When the Ur-Quan surrounded us and started giving orders that all ended with, 'Or Die!' we took them at face value. We obeyed.
In exchange, they gave us Gaia, the planet below. It's a beautiful world, Captain. I wish I could show it to you. So don't misunderstand me. We love our freedom as much as anybody else, but we've got a good life here, and we don't want to lose it.
ZELNICK
If you love freedom and hate the Ur-Quan, why don't you help us?
TALANA
Like I said before, Captain, we would like to help, but we are unwilling to risk losing Gaia. Unless you can find a much more compelling reason for us to get involved, you are on your own.
ZELNICK
What was Syra like?
TALANA
It was our paradice, Captain, our Eden. Earth is the only world we know of whose variety and richness of life eeven comes close to Syra. Again, like so many things about our two species, our worlds were very much the same, at least before you began encasing yours in concrete and plastic.
Syra's gravity was a bit lighter than Earth's and its day was fifty percent longer. Our diurnal cycle is therefore different from yours. We spend twenty hours awake, followed by ten hours... horizontal.
ZELNICK
What happened to Syra?
TALANA
This subject is very difficult for us, Captain, but I will try to recount those sad old days.
Like your solar system, ours had a large population of comets and asteroids. Large meteor impacts, though rare, were not unheard of on our planet. So it was not a total shock when an asteroid penetrated our atmosphere and hit the surface. What was odd was that unlike most other meteors, this one was not pulverized on impact. It penetarted the crust, and indeed went all the way through to the mantle, causing a 'super volcano'.
The earthquakes caused by the impact were severe. The magma pumped out of the caldera wreaked significant damage on the nearby terrain, but within a few weeks, it had cooled, forming a solid rock bandage over the wound.
Within a few months we had cleaned up the mess, the caldera was calming down nicely, and things were pretty much back to normal. Then, just over a year after the impact, all hell broke loose on the surface of Syra. Huge calderas were opening all over... not just around the meteor impact, but everywhere! The scope of the disaster is impossible to imagine. Entire cities sliding into oceans of molten lava... kilometer-wide sections of land pulverized by a cataclysmic explosion... and clouds of poison gas and superheated steam created a death shround around Syra.
ZELNICK
Come on now, isn't that outfit, knife included, a bit absurd?
Goodbye, Commander Talana. I will be back.
TALANA
Until then, Earthling.
That was a lot of exposition for one entry, so I think I'm gonna call it quits here.
NEXT TIME: Juffo-Wup.
<< | ^^ | >>