The Galactics Union

The Gamma Quadrant Dominion wrote:

Project: Smoothbore

-Vorta elaborate on coral worlds-

Last to their speaking turn was the current design and aspirations of Coral Worlds. At present, a basic Coral World had the approximate sea level of an M-Class planet. Continents were often still barriers to sea connectivity due to their altitudes. Heat generation and the challenges of fighting gravity were areas which the Vorta wanted to overcome. Crust penetrations went as far as the sea floor. Advanced Coral Worlds could extend up to the mountains but these were quite a lot older in age and still short of the meteoric aspirations that the Dominion required.

This was... new.
A planetary sized superorganism was, surprisingly, one of those things that the Starsians had never encountered before. Hive minds, yes, even starship-sized organisms. But not something so large as to occupy the surface layer of an entire planet. The theory was understandable, and a lot of the Vorta's previous enquiries made sense. As a superoganism, the Coral Worlds would have the fine control over their subsidiary parts to prevent runaway- and, indeed, rampant self-replication would be in their favour to grow. Currents of materials and an ocean of cells, a factory world that produced its own factories with the control of full consciousness... the power of a Coral World was intimidating in concept. But its applications, and more importantly the encouragement that such a thing was practical and existing, was exhilarating. More than a few of the engineering types were hastily recording notes as the Vorta explained.

But a more pressing concern was the next steps for Torrin, now that the Vorta had revealed this secret. Evidently the Dominion was looking for ways to improve the already-impressive capabilities of the Changelings, and many of those on the Torrin side could see the vision for what they wanted. But this was not something to be bandied about in the halls of the War College- any further work would have to come from a dedicated focus group; a "skunkworks."

As such, the higher-ups at Torrin grabbed a number of their promising engineers -including many of the students present for the roundtable- and formed Smoothbore, a code-name for what was only whispered as the Nanofactory Development Division, who were given their own research facility in Torrin's "Black Zone" where their secret projects were developed, and tasked with finding out as much as possible about these Coral Worlds and exploring absolutely every possible development that could arise from the theory. First steps were recontacting those Vorta officers who had spoken at the roundtable and asking them to be pulled from the War College to liase with Smoothbore and act as intermediaries between them and the Dominion. They could return to their studies after initial liaison, if they wished, but for the moment Torrin had no compunction in moving around people as it wished to get the job done. Of course, anybody in the know about Smoothbore could realise that any self-professed megacorp did not typically hold this level of unwavering command over its "employees", but then again, anybody at the level to be in the know about Smoothbore already knew that Torrin Industries was more than it seemed.

For now, Smoothbore needed to study the Coral Worlds further, and first point of order when the Dominion officers arrived was figuring out how to get both permission from the Dominion and solving the practical problems inherent in studying a creature made up of a planet.

New-Order2 wrote:

the GFC took them and, quite eagerly, went to work conducting tests. in short order they found that yes, they could do it with a tad bit more effort. they submitted this report back that they could fulfil any amount of it the TI requested, noting they would not charge any extra for this order, a sign that they either had ulterior motives or were desperate for the order to be placed.

Pleased, and not particularly concerned about their ulterior motives, Torrin entered the GFC as a supplier on their lists, and began placing orders for alloys on spec for use in their infrastructure buildup, powering expansions that had been delayed by waiting for material.

Korravan wrote:

Delegation to Torrin Industries|Torrin Industries
Aboard the Great Gull, an unarmed diplomatic vessel, the aged Sagdas Navaln sat watching stars slip by as his delegation traveled to the borders of Torrin Industries.

Sagdas was a veteran of foreign affairs and highly regarded by his peers for negotiations with the Planetary Colonial Syndicates in keeping some level of control over them and their autonomy and expansion efforts. His expertise in managing autonomy and asserting clear lines of agreements and non-negotiables were considered useful for the potential discussion with the Torrin Industries in the Directorate's reckoning.

It was also considered a balancing act as Sagdas was a pronounced Purist- adhering to the strictest upholding of the Revolutionary Principles-which makes his distaste for a sovereign corporation pronounced. And yet, he must balance his mission and goals as directed by the Directorate to arrange a satisfactory agreement with his own personal morales.

To add insult to injury, Sagdas believed he had been sent on this diplomatic mission with greenhorns as companions- inexperienced and bright eyed experts and ambassadors that he will, in his reckoning, have to keep under his wing and on a leash to guide them towards a diplomatic solution without faux pas.

As the Great Gull slowly neared Torrin space, Sagdas groaned as if he had experienced a prescient wave of exhaustion before the negotiations even begun.

The initial handling, at least, was smooth sailing, fortunately for Sagdas's composure. Torrin had been expecting the Directorate ship's arrival, and when it arrived at the coordinates designated, the delegates found themselves in one of Torrin's major foreign traffic entry points- a busy area of space where foreign ships of all kinds, from bulk freighters to warships, were dropping out of FTL all around and making their way to the massive FTL gate that dominated the space before them, its maw taking up almost the entire forward view. A traffic control vessel, a small, utilitarian thing, splashed in industrial colours, hailed them shortly after.
"Greetings, presumed-Korravan vessel. Your arrival is welcomed. A tug has been specially dispatched and will pick you up shortly."
Evidently, they had scanned the vessel and determined its origin already. A little while later, as other ships continued to move about their business all around the Great Gull in a well-organised dance of commerce, a tugship -yet another utilitarian vessel, though much larger- dropped out of FTL with surprising accuracy just ahead of the Great Gull, latched on with tractor beams and clamps, and pulled it into FTL, whisking it away without any fuss.

Both ships dropped out in orbit of Palici IV, the rusty-brown planet's orbit, if possible, even more busy than where they had just left. Ships, freight packets, orbital platforms- all manner of manmade object was zipping around them, a city in eternal flight, but the tug smoothly pulled them through the organised chaos, drawing them towards Torrin Industries' orbital headquarters, the beating heart of the industrial titan, the white circular arms of Vinci Station rotating gently in the dim sunlight of the Palici star. As the Great Gull didn't have, presumably, a docking port suitable for Torrin, they were guided into one of Vinci's all-fit ports, the tug dropping them free and pulling away as the bay doors closed behind them and atmosphere flooded the docking bay. Nearby, on a floating platform, stood the Torrin representative, dressed in the sharp black-and-gold uniform that perhaps looked a little anachronistic for a megacorporation. Idris Coyle was in many regards Torrin Industries' best negotiator- first starting out representing the long-ago Imperium, he'd served the Empress with distinction, and his service with Torrin had helped their extremely lucrative relationship with Orellia and led to the relationship continuing into the ISC. For such an important opportunity as this, he'd been a natural choice, and luckily for Torrin, although none knew it, his more traditional aspect to negotiations should ease Sagdas's concerns.

Torrin Industries wrote:

For now, Smoothbore needed to study the Coral Worlds further, and first point of order when the Dominion officers arrived was figuring out how to get both permission from the Dominion and solving the practical problems inherent in studying a creature made up of a planet.

Smoothbore || Torrin Industries

It took little time for the Dominion officers to join the NDD in earnest. Their former seats were filled by up-and-coming junior peers, freeing the Vorta from the roundtable to swiftly join Smoothbore in earnest.

Permission to study was the first hurdle, but it was easy to grapple with. For reasons they felt within their right to withhold, the Vorta made it clear to Torrin’s research team that the exact nature of the Changelings’ “essence and being” was considered highly sensitive for state security. It was therefore necessary before any research made into their psionic collective consciousness to consult the Vorta first. The reasons were self-evident: Changelings were thoroughly alien, nigh incomprehensible cosmic organisms with difficult to understand directives that were more feeling than instruction. The Vorta were extensions of these super colonies and, like any other colony cell, designed for the specific task of solid-to-solid interaction beyond the main body. Despite this, the Vorta were not entirely sure that the Changelings were aware of what their Dominion was doing. Studies needed to take care not to create a hostile response. If the NDD took care not to present any sort of threat, Changelings should be tolerant of external suggestion.

More challenging however, and the imminent subject of the first few weeks of work, were what tools they had to study a Coral World. In the past, the Vorta struggled to do so themselves; all kinds of instrument emissions were absorbed by the Changeling cells for energy, and electrical probing typically resulted in the probes being eaten. Mass spectrometry only worked in a vacuum, sample collection only gathered specific cells on the outer layers, mass shadows did not yield distinct masses, and Coral World development tended to be unstructured and difficult to predict for direct observation. They had long since run out of ideas, and modern understandings were only documented by the psionically gifted – and perennially unavailable – Missile Command whose Vorta were cybernetically augmented to interact with Changelings.

Something else that the Vorta also wanted to achieve was the study of earlier evolutions of Changelings, or at least what could broadly be described as letting a grey goo incident run away. The Vorta and the Dominion were created by the Changelings only after they achieved an advanced state of evolutionary development, so there was a massive gap in the study of their own biological history. Lacking such insights obscured a great deal of context for the colony plans and genetic variation of Changelings. It was also not out of the question that Changelings as living techno-organisms might also be vulnerable to disease. And this subject was what drew the Dominion to Torrin in the first place, being both a premiere developer of nanotechnology as well as lacking the suffocating phobias found elsewhere against this brand of ‘natural science.’

Lastly, as a footnote, it was probably necessary to code name Changeling. Saying it so many times was wearing it out.

New Saharia wrote:

Lurking in the Shadows || Titananium

Lurking in the Shadows || New Saharia

The chaos of battle strung together like a willow’s song on a summer day, every act of violence becoming another note in a far greater composition of data. Missiles, particle beams, gravitational distortions, shattered armor, failed jumps, and desperate maneuvers were reduced to data points scattered across a high-dimensional vector space, then analyzed within fractions of a second in the heart of Purifier’s mainframe. Swarms of specialized subtasks dissected every exchange, measured every reaction, and assigned meaning to each moment of the destructive symphony unfolding before her.

Purifier found herself admiring the hardy shell of the opposing combat platform. It was certainly a tough nut to crack, far more resilient than she had initially expected, and that alone made it worthy of a certain measure of respect. Of all her recent playmates, this one was proving exceptionally entertaining.

The mass-production ships had thrown everything in their arsenals at this beast, and somehow it had survived. That left Purifier positively giddy, if such punishment had failed to knock it out, then discovering exactly how much violence would be required presented an irresistible experimental opportunity.

Her enthusiasm vanished the instant an ominous notification began flashing across her consciousness, a transmission from her dreaded command platform. Purifier regarded it with something approaching apprehension before reluctantly flicking a digitized hand through the projection and pulling the message into view.

You have gathered sufficient information for the time being. Return to the Sea. - The Empress

“Damn. It was just getting interesting, too.”

Purifier grumbled as she dismissed the message and brought the combat map back into focus. The surviving mass-production ships continued their engagement across the projection, their positions surrounded by streams of telemetry and damage reports that Purifier had already begun cataloguing for later examination.

“Guess there’s no point throwing away too many resources.” The admission came with a sigh of unmistakable dissatisfaction.

With a flick of her hand, she issued the withdrawal order. Every vessel still capable of independent movement was assigned an FTL retreat pattern toward the resupply platform, their routes calculated to minimize further exposure during disengagement. Those too badly damaged to escape were immediately written off. The same fate awaited any vessel still trapped within the anomalous region generated by the Saharian ship, whatever mechanism it had employed continuing to interfere with both maneuverability and FTL movement. Purifier scheduled them for self-destructive scuttling, there would be no prizes left behind.

By the conclusion of the experiment, seventeen of the original thirty-two mass-production ships had been lost. More than half the force expended against a single opposing platform was hardly an insignificant price, but Purifier had never considered the vessels themselves particularly precious. They were after all mass-production platforms that could be replaced, the data and insight they gave however was priceless.

Every failed attack, every distorted trajectory, every intercepted projectile, every damaged hull, and every ship that had found itself unable to escape had revealed something about the enemy. Seventeen vessels were the cost of a collection of observations that could now be dissected, modeled, and incorporated into future iterations, that alone made the exchange more than worthwhile.

She had learned how the beast survived, in the future she could begin learning how to kill it.

New-Order2 wrote:

The only hope was that at least one of the distress signals being sent out made it back, and he mused about how he'd not be a statistic adding to the dramatically reduced life expectancy of people in the diplomatic service.

“Your lack of cooperation is noted. Under Article 378-B of the Star League Charter, your vessel is hereby detained until further notice on reasonable suspicion of actions harmful to, or otherwise endangering, the safety of League space and its denizens.” The declaration hung in the air for a painfully long moment, its bureaucratic formality doing little to conceal the threat beneath it.

Within seconds the power armor clad security personnel positioned behind the ODIN unit moved. Bladed staffs came alive in their hands, their edges igniting with a brilliant sheen as weapons were drawn from magnetic locks at their waists. The movements were calculated, practiced with the precision of warrior who had performed this a thousand times before and had no expectation that the warning would need to be repeated.

The meaning was clear, they were no longer requesting for cooperation, cooperation had become non-negotiable.

Simultaneously around the Solarian vessel, the trifecta of combat-capable ships had already moved to enforce the statement from the Odin unit. They settled into positions surrounding the vessel, weapons trained and sensors fixed upon it from multiple angles, tracking every fluctuation in power, every maneuvering impulse, and every hint of movement that might suggest an attempt to escape; they had even put up communications jamming fields that affected FTL comms.

Wabby Wabbo

Korravan wrote:

Delegation to Saharia|New Saharia

Yozere Anrenade was selected as the head of the delegation to the Saharians. She along with four fellow delegates consisted of the negotiating team to meet with Saharians and greet them on their own turf to determine the relationships between Korravan and Saharia moving forward.

Yozere was chosen despite her relative youth, being only in her mid 30s to lead the delegation due to her popularity in public affairs- she had spent the past fifteen years in public service, serving as a delegate and representative in state-planetary negotiations and press communications, having made her mark as among the most popular press figures in the Commonwealth in the past five years.

Thanks to her favorability, she was chosen to lead the Saharia delegation- expecting a fairly amenable and open negotiation process that wouldn't prove to difficult for her to overcome. And, of course, if push comes to shove, she has four delegates, experts in the fields of diplomacy, economics, business, and trade to help her.

As their vessel, an unarmed diplomatic cruiser, named the Helix escorted by two of the new model Fast Attack Crafts (FAC) slipped out of metric slipspace- they drew closer to entry into Saharia proper.

Delegation to Saharia || Korravan

The Republic was more than willing to send their people over to the Commonwealth and save them the trouble of such a journey and the hassle of assembling and moving important personnel…

…but if they wish to arrange a visit, the Diplomatic Corps is eager to ensure they receive the proper welcome.

---

Viskova System, Saharian Republic

Humanity stands imbued with everlasting glory in spite of the tragedy that has so often befallen them. At the heart of the Republic is not a rocky world like Earth or Sahar, but an artificial construct of unbelievable magnitude. On approach to the ringworld of Viskova, first-time visitors might believe their eyes fail them; its silhouette is as iconic as it is stunning.

The Ring of Power, as it is unofficially known in Saharia, is just shy of seventy-thousand kilometers in diameter. At one-thousand eight-hundred kilometers thick, the ring’s internal surface area is roughly two-thirds of the late Old Earth. Upon this surface is where mankind’s strongest bastion stands the test of time.

Although Viskova herself steals the gaze of any visitor, it is the far tinier - yet still gargantuan - space station known as Viskova Prime which the Commonwealth delegation must first pass through. It is the largest Starhold in Republic space by far, a colossal central spire attached to a massive 300-kilometer wide docking ring which fractals outwards symmetrically, dividing into uncountably many gangways and docking ports for the billions of folk who pass through this system on a daily basis. The Saharian Diplomatic Corps flexes its muscle to get the Korrivani onboard the station as quickly as possible, avoiding one of the less-colorful aspects of the Viskova System - getting stuck in the dense traffic.

After such a trip, Saharian diplomats are well-prepared to offer each of the Commonwealth diplomats a five-star guest suite complete with a grand viewport out towards Viskova. Here, there is nothing but time. The great Eastern Spire in the capital city of Edekar waits patiently for their arrival, whether it be today, tomorrow, or the day after.

---

Saharian Interests

The Republic’s interest in the Commonwealth’s development outreach initiative practically spans its entire breadth. William Lee, the nation’s most elite diplomat, has temporarily moved from his post in the Feidalus to work directly with the Korrivani delegation to give the start of this collaboration the best possible foundation.

Saharia, while interested in abiding by the Commonwealth’s stated goals, is interested in a more mutual two-way relationship. He will make as much known to the delegation; even though Saharia is surely at the razor’s edge of sophistication and advancement, Saharia has still managed to learn much from civilizations far short of them in those same metrics. Even though the Diplomatic Corps is making every effort to not-so-softly showcase Saharian dominance, they’re simultaneously trying to be humble and cooperative…

---

Saharia wants to foster a growing, mutual relationship with the Commonwealth. However, in order to not seem too interested, the Republic is keeping her offerings slimmer than she would otherwise. If even a few of these proposed collaborations get a good start, the nation will surely wish to expand the bounds of the greater initiative.

sup yall

The Gamma Quadrant Dominion wrote:

Smoothbore || Torrin Industries

It took little time for the Dominion officers to join the NDD in earnest. Their former seats were filled by up-and-coming junior peers, freeing the Vorta from the roundtable to swiftly join Smoothbore in earnest.

Lastly, as a footnote, it was probably necessary to code name Changeling. Saying it so many times was wearing it out.

Project Smoothbore
Fortunately they could somewhat solve both of the main issues at play. Instead of having to consult with the Vorta while grappling with the Changeling biology, Smoothbore simply gave the Vorta access to any of Torrin's technologies they wished (the Dominion was paying for access to these things anyway) and let them figure out the Changeling issue (any attempt at a codename was shot down) and report back with whatever information they were willing to disclose. APSIS in particular became critical to learning these things- it provided the cybernetic link required for interfacing with the Coral Worlds, and the Vorta were somewhat better at adapting to the stresses of APSIS in a short time.

This yielded satisfactory results, and Smoothbore began to dig deeper into how the Coral World actually worked.

It was biology, in a sort of strange sense, veins and capillaries of nanomachines carrying energy and material like blood, strange organs building machines instead of bile. But in the finest tradition of evolution, it was also efficient, more so than Torrin's own nanomachine tubes, and the first results of Smoothbore were improvements to Torrin's designs, which would hopefully stop some of the feed issues they'd had every so often. In return, Torrin knew quite a bit about turning planets into factories on a larger scale, and as the Vorta had perhaps hoped Smoothbore quickly yielded preliminary designs for Coral World-produced terraforming machines that could operate underneath the "cell" layer, grading and munching on the continents to provide more room and material for the Changeling, and low-orbit space elevators for movement of goods out of the Coral World while also providing stable structural support for further Changeling growth, like a stake placed by a gardener for his vines to cling to- except this was a two-thousand-kilometre stake for a psionic superorganism that probably resented the comparison to a common backyard plant.

The next immediately obvious stage for Smoothbore was going to be significantly more challenging. It was no secret that the second Torrin had figured out that the Coral Worlds were real and functional, they wanted something like it for their own, an intelligent superfactory the size of a planet. Who wouldn't? The concept was exactly the game changer the industry-hungry company -and people- needed for their rampant expansion of their capabilities. For whom, exactly, they were expanding their already-sizeable industry for when their customers were few and far between wasn't brought up.
But, obviously, there was significant challenge to creating a Torrin version. They didn't have psionic superorganisms on hand to wrangle the herd of nanomachines, and letting a mountain of nanomachines loose on a random planet without strict control was asking for trouble. Even the nanomachine tubes still had nukes attached to them as a safety precaution. But the Torries hadn't gotten through a thousand years by giving up at a lack, and the first experiments were small-scale, bringing in what few psionic individuals Torrin had and trying their hand at psionically controlling the nanomachines of a tube.
This failed miserably. Without the mindlink the Changelings have, the "control" was just limited to pushing the nanomachines around and getting in their way. And you couldn't mindlink with a nanomachine.

Or could you?
While the bulk of Smoothbore buried themselves in investigating that line of inquiry, a new one cropped up unexpectedly, from one of the engineering students present at the original board. A bit of a leatherworking hobbyist when they weren't working on high-orbital factory engineering, the descriptions of how the Coral Worlds worked and constructed things from cells sparked a bit of an idea. Leather, he noted, worked the same way, and one of the major reasons it was still a thriving industry in the far future was because it was one of the few textiles that naturally mixed properties without having an obvious "weave" to pick apart. The same theory, he argued, could be used here, and probably make pretty impressive body armour. To test the theory, he soon presented the Vorta with a few textile design ideas that could be passed on to the Changelings for test production. It was small steps for now, just making fibril bundles out of existing material threads, but there was Ideas.