Timeless Klackon Legend:2300: The Exile
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.
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 with their 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!
OOC Note: 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!
OOC Note: 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.
< ... >
_______________
Next: Swarming the Stars
