Ssriskiss (The Hub)

[Swix]

"... Blinking?" Erayna repeats Ashaels word, puzzled, the hologram of her making a puzzled expression on Rranntaks touchpad "I thought that required something to close and then open again?" 'What a strange way to name something'

Rranntak however looked over at Ashael with more interest, the E-Maginian having completed most of his work. All he had to do now was make sure nothing malfunctioned, and everything should be fine. The reptile creature grinned at the glowing human. "Blinking, huh?" he said "I've never seen anything like that, how'd you do it?... Oh, yes, I'm Rranntak" the E-Maginian corrected himself, and bowed slightly to Ashael. To his kind, a bow was a show of respect, as it exposed one of few vulnerable places they had, the back of the neck "who might you be?"

"Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention earlier" the AI apologised to 501, chastised "... So what is your name?"

N'Lel did his best to look pleased, but what with the kind of creature he was facial expressions weren't exactly his strong point. That and Eraynas nonchalance made him mildly embarrassed.

"That is Erayna" the T'Laran explained "she's the Consortium Artificial Intelligence, and I'm told still young" the orange alien pulled out his own touchpad from the pale blue, horribly clashing clothing he was wearing and began to type on it with wiry fingers delicately, though this had been adapted for T'Laran physiology he nevertheless wanted to make sure that he didn't end up breaking it.

"Our invitation still stands if you want to visit us" N'Lel repeated, unnecessarily as he paused to peer over at 501 from his pad "the Portal is always open..." N'Lel dropped his professional tone here briefly to say "and I mean that literally, though the engineers claim to be working on it... Surely you've noticed the stationary new blue 'star' in these skies?"

The pad flickers red briefly, indicating the message had been sent, and N'Lel put it back where it came from. "Now we wait to see what Teesn says" N'Lel sighed a heavy sigh that came close to sounding like wheezing, and looked towards the sky for signs of the transports before looking back to 501 "Stranded here? Are you lacking... err... locomotion? No that's not right... transport? I think that's the right word for it"
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In space away from the CSS, where the gigantic swirling blue portal that linked Consortium space with Blackstars, there was movement. Compared to the blue mass itself, the movement was quite small, as seven dull black metal transports along with one that moved and looked organic came through. They headed straight for the larger spaces Erayna had picked out close to the landing site, once again with alarming speed. Each transport was the same as the one from the start, bar the organic, dark green one. But this time each one headed for the spots scattered around with better precision, the pilots of these opting to go the safer option and coming to a far better controlled landing. Before hitting the ground the dark green transport snaked out several large, tendril like limbs that hit the ground and brought the completely spherical vessel down slowly. They remained outside, to stabilise and stop it from falling over.
The other transports lowered ramps and opened automatic doors for the pilots to show their faces to this world, each one making their way down the ramps and standing straight at attention. Each pilot was a member of each of the different species of the Consortium, including another of N'Lels species and a female of Rranntaks, who was bigger, had no raised scales on her forehead and who's antennae stuck straight up.

The organic ship lowered a large tube rather than a ramp, and out of that came one of the Krkrln, a race of sentient plants, who's insect like black eyes blinked slowly at the change in light.

((EDIT to account for my terrible counting, there's actually eight member species . The Tezca, Tiermutians, E-Maginians, Kinntrra, Oktaluns, Krkrln, T'Larans and Reniilians))

[Zerrer]

"I am Ashael. Currently, I am unaffiliated with any group or organization." Ashael grinned. "And as for the blinking, it's a preternatural ability; Much like my aura- and various other abilities of mine." To demonstrate, she blinked a few feet to the left.

[Coolpikaaa]

"Uhhmm...."

It took Jack a while to find something suitable to store himself on. An old hard drive in the junk heap COULD possibly work...

The AI program decided to test a new system one of the crew members had come up with. A set of tentacle like wires that were fully movable by Jack. It would allow the AI to fix the station himself if any thing was to happen again. He slid one of the wires out of it's socket near the garbage heap in the loading bay, dragging it along the ground until it reached the hard drive.

"Ok...I found a new home! Just don't forget to pick me up! This will probably the last thing I can say until I join up on your ship....so Bye bye!"

The wire slid into the back of the harddrive and transfered Jack's program.

-coolpikaaa

[Cirrial]

501 calls out to the ship. "CAM-501, but, well, just use 501." He looks back to N'Lel. "Stranded in the sense that our specific warp technology, despite having no problems with any other known universe, doesn't work as reliably as we'd like between our universe and this universe. We had no problems when we had a vector clamp here... Oh, sorry, this is a digression. I don't need to lecture you on the workings of Maratix warp technology."

He looks up. "A new blue star. Must be quite a portal. Anyway, I meant stranded in the sense that I can't get back to my home universe, or even communicate with it any more. It's strange. I only got here by a portal randomly terminating here, and that was an act that should have been impossible. It's as if establishing portals between my home universe and this place shifted from incredibly easy to almost impossible."

He looks thoughtfully in the direction of the city, or where he assumes the city to be. "Actually, now that I think about it, this place has its own warp exploration organisation. Perhaps they noticed us at first, and cut off our access somehow. Maybe all I need to do is go ask them. Maybe you guys should go ask them too. Then again, I don't know if I should even technically know that they exist. We only found out from monitoring warp signatures for our own purposes. We thought it was just random noise at first."

He shrugs. "Well, I don't know." He stops to think of something else to say and is caught off guard by the transports suddenly landing all around.

Wow!

[Swix]

((Apologies in advance for the massive post ))

"Pre-terr-natural" Rranntak repeats, rolling the r's around in his mouth like he would in his native tongue as the E-maginian watches the transports enter the atmosphere and land without any problems, the look on his reptilian face could only be called smug "that is... before natural? Not natural? Are you perhaps like the Tezca, do you work with... magic?" The E-Maginian seems to treat the last with slight disapproval, the E-Maginians tended to rely on technology more than anything else, so the fact that the serpentine Tezca race combined their tech with what the reptilians considered medieval mumbo-jumbo, and it worked, had become the subject of much tension between the two species.

"Well, nice to meet you 501" Erayna replied to the mechanoid, whilst privately wondering why he preferred a number over his name. She had a number too, but the young AI preferred her name. She paused, very briefly, as she recieved the last message from Jack and considered something on her sensors. 'What are they doing here?' the AI thought to herself, but rather than inform anyone currently around the AI sent this particular piece of data straight to Teesn, Thorn, and the entire Tezca and Krkrln governments. Let them sort it out, she had things she wanted to do... Like show Jack the Homeworlds! She just had to wait for a remote ship to come through... The AI was delighted to see that she didn't have to wait for long, as up in space the gigantic blue portal allowed another ship through. This one smaller than the transports, built like a light scout and bereft of any weapons. It did have shields though, and to the AIs increasing delight it was entirely automated. She could go wherever she wanted in that. "I don't think I'll be needed anymore. Goodbye, I'm going to travel with my friend" Erayna said to everyone, before the AI's image disappeared as she transferred her entire program from one ship to another. Data and space being what they are, it would take a little while...

N'Lel watched 501 watching the transports, waiting for Teesns answer. It shouldn't be 'night' on the station yet... he'd probably be in big trouble if he woke him up. Not from the Tezcan, Teesn wasn't bad for a politician, but from the ones who tended to surround him since the Consortiums traumatic 'birth'.

"Perhaps we should" N'Lel conceded with 501 about the portals, although had the robotic keynain gone any further into it it would have gone completely over the T'Larans head "maybe yours is havingthe opposite problem with ours? But you'd have to speak to Leinnrrad about that, and he is... well, that is classified. You understand?" The T'Laran stopped in order to consult the pad, as it was showing a message had come through "Teesn says he'll come talk to you here, he should be coming through... about now" the T'Laran stopped, tapped the pad, stared at it through his goggles and seemed puzzled. Then the T'Laran wheeze-sighed as he put the pad back within the folds of his blue clothing. "He's requesting that you speak with him away from here. That won't be a problem, will it?"
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High up out of the atmosphere, and a way away from the orbiting CSS station, one more ship was on course for a visit with Blackstar. Though it dwarfed the tiny scout-explorer that Erayna had, just now managed to transfer her whole being onto, it didn't come close to exceeding the size of the blue mass. Only a Tiermutian city-ship would come close, and this one wasn't a city-ship. It was a Tezca flagship, bigger than a warship and packing quite a heck of a lot more punch, but necessary when delivering someone who'd got himself quite so far up the ladder as Teesn. The flagship had been modified, the addition of the Oktaluns cloak detecting Web technology meaning that an invisible ship could only get so far before the systems would detect it. It was a necessary thing considering what had been going on in their galaxy, but it didn't take away from the sheer sleekness and grace the Tezca had spent many years of their species lifetimes perfecting. The flagship took up a high orbit once it had fully entered the space, and waited with such an amount of anticipation and trepidation radiating off one single entity the whole ship seemed nervous.

Erayna having finally transferred all of herself into the remote ship steered it towards the CSS, hailing it as she went.
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Down below, Erayna had left one final broadcast that was triggered by remote once she'd left the ship. The broadcast should, hopefully, be picked up by anyone with the ability to listen to it, which included disrupting several tv shows.

"Greetings residents of Blackstar.

We are the Consortium, an alliance of many species. We offer our friendship to your most interesting of planets and those citizens who want to embrace it.

We have landed many transports in your 'the Wilds' area here" the broadcast was briefly interrupted by a map showing the exact location of the transports "and we invite you to visit our station, the Hub, the centre of business, travel and much more.

... P. S. only Muzvus rebels are welcome snakes"

Rranntak and N'Lel, hearing the last bit broadcast from the transport they'd arrived in, both clapped their hands over their eyes in embarrassment. "And she was doing so well" N'Lel muttered.

[Coolpikaaa]

Jack waited inside the old hard drive for his alien friends. He wasn't hooked into anything, so he couldn't respond to any hails from the other AI.

The hard drive waited in the docking bay, ready for whoever to carry it off.

((Ok Swix, feel free to take Jack aboard! He can't do much in his current state anyway. ))

-coolpikaaa

[GBE]

Thum's almost metallic looking face adopts an expression of confusion as Nrenth responds to his request. He temporarily looks at other members of the ship recieves confused looks from them also. "I'm sorry, either you're new to our species or you must be very tired. Until the opening negotiations of diplomatic negotiations are agreed, we can no proceed."

Looking more confident, "In the case of inter-race relations, non-aggression and neutral treaties must be agreed as well as other as of yet to be negotiated agreements. Once these are agreed, entrance to said neutral territory is gained and then face to face diplomatic discussion can proceed.

To make this more simple for you, we will send you a list of reasonable agreements that we would like, and if necessary discuss them. I am sure however that you would agree to them."

Thum turns to someone who appears to be a comms officer, "Please send list one right away." Within seconds The Hub should receive a file of agreements which include:

Non-aggression from either party
Access to dock with neutral territory
Access to necessary supplies if available and necessary
Entrance and protection with neutral territory (The Hub)
Full ambassadorial care
Access to living quarters where available
A diplomatic negotiator within one hour of arrival upon neutral territory

[Zerrer]

"It is the same sort of energy as magic." Ashael said. "But it's actually more like an ability of my kind, such as certain plants have photosynthesis and such."

[Swix]

Nrenth didn't have eyelids, so rather than smack her hand over her head in exasperation her usually grey-green scales began to take on red tints. Basic misunderstanding on both parts, and it seemed this was these particular Utopians first time on a visit to the Hub. Nrenth took a deep breath, filling her one single lung, and responded to the Utopians once again.

"Your list seems reasonable, if a little late in coming. An earlier warning would have allowed us to be more prepared. Now, is there a particular Ambassador who you wish to speak to? Or would any Consortium offical do?"

Nrenth paused, breathed again and let it out before continuing with a less diplomatic and more frustrated tone of voice.

"Access to dock will not be granted until you power down your weapons and shields. I operate this station, and you are disrupting it. I've currently got six patrol ships trained on your position asking what to do, the Tiermutians want to know if we have upset you and are preparing their city-ships for an emergency escape, the E-Maginians, Kinntrra and Oktaluns are all powering up their weapons and shields-they mostly travel in well armed ships, and" Nrenth paused, reading down her screen "our docking bays and transport systems have now become clogged. Now, I suggest you power down your weapons and shields to avoid further mass hysteria. Or would you rather wait until someone gets trigger happy and start a war in Neutral territory?"
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"Really?" Rranntak said, his slit eyes showing more interest in the glowing purple human than before now her blinking was revealed to be a bit more natural than just using magic. "Some of my kind say we should have telepathic abilities" the E-Maginian said to the Archon "these antennae of ours don't seem to have much use. But then some of my kind say we should never have come out of the desert. What is your kind? We call ourselves E-Maginians"
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Erayna docked the small remote-control ship in the CSS, odd that no-one responded to her hails. Jack said he wouldn't be able to, but surely the crew would have seen it. Unless they'd taken it down for repair? Oh well... wait... how was she supposed to pick him up? It's not like the ship had arms or anything, just sensors, a door to open, shields, a maintenance robot, thrusters, FTL drive, the usual... Maintenance robots, they had arms! They were a little small for Eraynas liking, but she didn't have to transfer herself into the thing completely, as it too was remote, meant to help make minor repairs to a ship that would rarely if ever see a crew.

Erayna lowered the ramp and door, allowing a small robot that was only about three feet in height and looked fairly basic. Hardly surprising considering what it's job was meant to be, but it was perfect at picking delicate things up. Which is exactly what it did with Jacks old harddrive, once Erayna had figured out where and what it was. The robot carried the old harddrive inside the ship and paused. Then it deliberately moved over to an area where a backup port had been (once the bot had removed it ) and attempted to put Jack and his old hard drive into it. 'I hope this works' Erayna worriedly thought to herself. What if the technology wasn't compatible? She'd hate to think that she might damage her friend. If it did work, Jack would be in the ship alongside her, though unable to access things like their shields and possibly sensitive data.

"Jack? Jack, can you hear me?"

[Zerrer]

"I-" Ashael began, looking at the ground. Her aura tightened around her and slowed down, as if she were sad. "I don't know. I'm the only of my kind that I have found."

[Coolpikaaa]

Jack booted up inside the alien ship, marveling at it's strange systems and programming. It all seemed so foreign to him.... he felt a bit unwelcome in this strange new world.

Jack finally found Eranya and all his fears of being lost melted away. It was his first actual look at the other AI, and he suddenly felt...funny.

"Bu...Bah...You're pretty..." Jack started, then caught himself. " ....cool! It is very cool of you to let me on your ship!"

Smooth....

-coolpikaaa

[Cirrial]

501 breaks his gaze away from the ships on hearing N'Lel talking to him. "Hmm? Oh. No problem at all." He speaks in a slight daze as he refocuses his attention on the flagship he can just make out. Woww...

"I'm starting to feel a little out of my depth. I haven't seen ships that large in ages. And I'm not sure if I should really be taking this whole diplomat role... oh, wait, I just said that out loud. ...Erm, ignore me. Just the mutterings of a semi-marooned sophont feeling a small amount of doubt about their position in the grand scheme of things."

I've never felt so nervous. When was the last time I ever acted as a formal diplomat to anything outside of Maratix and Floating Arm internal affairs? ...This might be the first time! I wish my memory wasn't so patchy sometimes.

He stands quietly, awkwardly shuffling about. The presence he had attempted to command earlier seemed to be leaving him rapidly as he felt increasingly unsure about the full extent of Floating Arm protocols, and what took precedence over what. At least back home he'd be able to ask someone.

Oh, forget it all! I'll approach them as a Maratix diplomat, and claim ignorance if there's an investigation. After all, how was I to know that Maratix kept Blackstar a secret while absent? ...That's a thought. What if Blackstar's existence has been made public? What if the portals are being blocked, not here, but on the other end? ...No, no, someone would tell me if they were going to start doing that. Right?

He stares into the sky, and, without even realising, clasps his hands together, fidgeting uncomfortably.

[MDude]

Across the Dojo, in the depths of the Corrupted Cave, a pile of electronics caught wind of the signal sent out by Eryana. The message was first noticed by the T.V. recording subsystem, which passed it on to the security center as a high-urgency disruption over all channels. The security center, not understanding the concept of peaceful contact, grabbed the attention of MDefrag, the primary maintenance program, to help resolve the anomalous situation. MDefrag, looking over the hail, actually managed to understand it's contents (aside from what a Muzvus was), and dismissed the other programs as it weighed it's options.

"A portal that's not just letting in would-be-conquerers, huh? I wonder what MDude's going to think about this... actually, I haven't seen him in a while. And I don't really think I can trust the other members to not give a bad impression, at least not any a know well. I guess I could...send some grunts out to meet them? No wait, I can do better than that, I can send grunts out to carry me out to meet them! No one uses this network for anything but stealing cable and browsing Raven's stash anyway!" was the monologue it gave to itself as it decided to leave the cave for the first time.

Elsewhere, two nondescript grunts in white t-shirts and pants, slightly stained with various junk foods, were surprised to see an urgent notice from the auto-systems: "Hey guys, I know you're all busy (yeah right), but how about helping go on a little adventure here? Just grab my box and some power to this location in The Wilds ASAP. The good news: This mission's possibly safe!" along with a copy of the map. The grunts, not wanting to displease anything with a higher rank than them, nabbed a portal to the wilds and a generator before lugging them to the cold room used by most servers.

Already shivering from wearing t-shirts into the cold rooms, the grunts approached the computer with the needed generator on a 4-wheel platform truck, pressing the space bar on it's keyboard to announce their arrival. CRT monitor slowly fading out of sleep mode to show a simplistic face, the artificial intelligence greeted them. "Oh, hey, whiteshirts, my favorite grunt series! Just load me up and let's get out of here before someone takes notice. Don't rush, we've got a few days." Grateful to hear someone omit "wimpy" from their nickname, the pair cheerfully did as they were asked, and were soon pulling the small desktop computer through a swirling vortex out into the wilds.

Out in the warmer, grassy fields of the Wilds, the two IT grunts pushed the trolley along to the landing site while MDefrag used a simple radio transmitter to announce itself to the visitors: "Greetings Consortium members! This is MDefrag representing the Evil Council Faction of Blackstar! I would like to visit this hub of yours in order to begin our relationship in a friendly manner. Many of our representatives can be somewhat... uncouth, so I'd like to make certain you understand that we can be negotiated with. Sometimes at least. Just don't get between our officers and their whatever-they-crave-most." By the time they got to the ships, the grunts had worked up a sweat from hauling all the equipment, and were wishing they could have brought a little bit of that cold room air with them.

[Swix]

((I'm going to steal 3kuls idea of making which part of my post enlarge the person it refers to name to avoid confusion ))

Rranntaks slitted, yellow eyes took on a more softened look as Ashael grew saddened by his question "I'm sorry" he said, meaning it "I didn't mean to offend you. That's not what we came here to do. Listen, you have your own ship, why don't you go and visit the Hub in it? Maybe it'll help you forget what I said"
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Erayna felt relieved, she'd been dreading that something might have happened to Jack and she'd never get a reply back in the minute amount of time it had taken him to acclimate to the alien technology that now surrounded him, though to her it was familiar territory. Should he ever allow her the same courtesy, she'd probably feel the same way.

"... Pretty...?" Erayna repeated, a little shocked, before he could catch himself with the rest of his sentence "Oh, right, pretty cool! Thanks! You're pretty cool yourself"

The alien AI busied part of herself with lifting the little remote ship off of the CSS, then heading towards the massive blue portal that lead to her home universe with as much speed as she could get, which could almost be considered recklessly hasty. Erayna stopped however once she saw the massive flagship now orbiting the world below, a little lost for words. For about, a quarter second "I didn't think Teesn would actually come through" Erayna muttered absently "Jack, meet the Consortiums flagship" Erayna introduced the massive yet sleek looking ship as another transport detached itself from one it's major ports and headed towards the landing site.
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"You..." N'Lel said, looking at 501 as thoughtfully as an orange alien wearing blue clothing and with a large pair of goggles over their eyes could "don't get many visitors here, then?" The T'Laran clasped his hands in front of himself once more as he too waited, which they didn't have to adhere to for very long before the transport containing Teesn arrived a short distance from the rest, and avoiding a rise in the landscape not so far away from them for no readily apparent reason, unless you happened to be able to somehow scan or hear what was happening over there.

Another ramp lowered and hatch swung open, this time to admit two serpentine guards, both with the usual grey-green coloured scales, dressed in purple clothing that seemed to be there as much for holding the pair of plasma guns as they were for marking them for what they were.

Between and just behind them came Teesn, who looked to be a perfectly normal member of the species, as he was not wearing a uniform or any clothing at all. Since they were closely related to snakes, Tezca had no legs but slithered along the ground on the bottom half of their bodies, though on the other hand they did possess not two but four arms. These were deceptively thin, as were their three fingered hands complete with small claws, again because of their serpentine backgrounds.

His unblinking green eyes scanned the scene in front of him as he felt the comfortable temperature that had been surrounding his body in the ship drop, Teesn didn't have the advantage of being able to use magic like some of his kind. Yet he was good at what he did.

Once they'd hit the ground, Teesns gaze fixed on 501. "You must be the diplomat my colleague told me about" Teesn said, dipping his head in the traditional manner for his kind as his scales changed to a lighter green "CAM-501, it's an homour to meet you. I am Teesn, as I'm sure you know" the founder did his best not to look at the rise worriedly, as he knew who lurked there "This is a little unorthodox, do you know of a private place we can talk? Here is a little too open for my liking"
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N'Lel, after seeing that Teesn had gotten here ok, now turned his goggled gaze upon what looked to him to be a primitive computer carried by two white-shirted and tall mammalians. His oversensitive eyes didn't appreciate the view, but he had heard the announcement and if it was possible to defuse something before it happened was quite eager to do so. 'The Evil Council huh? the T'Laran thought 'sounds like a satire.. I'm sure Erayna mentioned something like that from her last trip'

"Greetings to you MDefrag" the T'Laran replied, not sure who he was supposed to be looking at and immensely grateful for his goggles for once "one of the pilots will be happy to ferry you to the Hub. Just approach whichever one you wish to travel with. We understand some species are uncomfortable with certain things"

[GBE]

Ambassador Thum appears to be a little insulted with the manner in which he's spoken too. Most races seemed glad to have the Utopians appear at their space stations and met their demands readily. However the current being he was speaking appeared to be both annoyed and rude. "Very well, our weapons and shields will be powered down to make all concerned more comfortable. However, do not be fooled by our ships appearance. This ambassadorial ship has fought and won wars against greater numbers. You would do well to note that we are here on a peaceful diplomatic mission!"

All readings and sensors would show the ships weapons powered down fully and the shields powered down to a minimum hull integrity level. "We have met your requirements. And I think since you are here, we would be pleased to have you as our negotiator." One of the other people on deck turns around to hide a small smile. "I hope that we shall be receiving docking information shortly. Ambassador Thum out." With that his image cuts of screen as the ship takes a safe position near a docking bay ready to take the first available spot.