An Extinction Event

The majority of the Burninite fleet actually parks there as well.

The Spotlight and its occupants arrive at the Kotalian planet cloaked, and immediately detect the massed forces, and so recognize the beginnings of advanced civilization.

"They will definitely detect our fleets when we bring them in," Thorgood says. Clearly hating needing to consult with others on military matters on equal footing, but doing his best to hide it out of courtesy, he continues, "I think that we should contact them before moving in. What do you think?"

OOC: I'd imagine at this time the Hive warships would be closing in with possible one day before exit from slipspace. If the Slipspace energy signatures were not already apparent, they are definitely now. You'd be detecting roughly .... (lets see there was 80 signatures for 100 ships at Centauri and this is 3 times more so...) 240 energy points in the system. And the energy signature is growing every moment and it will spike just before the slipspace portals open. By the way, I would think that the Centaurans would be able to identify the ratio of energy signatures to ships based off of what they saw in their own system and may note the large number difference.

The captain of the Invidious replies, "I agree. Best to let them know we are intercepting and warding off an invading star fleet on their behalf. It'd give the damn Hive a nice surprise finding us already there."

(OOC: All this has happened remarkably quickly, Delt. I'm not sure how long you said that your ships would take to get there, but at this point we're talking about 2 days or so having passed.)

Thorgood does not uncloak, but opens a channel and broadcasts a signal to the Kotalians. Given that the people there are clearly not super-primitive, he doesn't bother concealing their alien origin.

"Greetings people of this planetary system, does anyone read us? We come in peace -- we would like to show ourselves and discuss an important matter with the leaders of this world. Please respond."

Talent Zhang generally nods assent.

OOC: Really? only two days, I understand this is going quickly, but that seems very fast. But in that case I guess its more on the scale of 3 days until the Hive arrives. Your sensors may be detecting small amounts of energy massing.

Should I also play the Kotalians for the sake of RP or do one of you want to play them?

(OOC: I really don't think there's too much else that can be done in the intervening time from between the Hive leaving and them arriving. Also, it would probably be best if you played the Kotalians since it is your thread.)

(OOC: You should play them, yes. And yeah, all that we needed to do was exchange a message after the fleet left, then teleport over to the system. Leaving an intervening day maybe to prepare the fleet.)

Space Monitor Station, Mount Marl, Kotalis
"Hey man, you have got to come here this." the scientists said to his colleague.

"I really dont want to see one of your 'talents' again. They are really not that good. Please just let me enjoy my meal in peace." The first man turned the volume up so the second one could hear. "What is that?"

"I'm not sure yet, its really staticy."

"Well can you tune it better? Maybe it will come in better." the first man used his computer to try and filter out some of the static. "Damnit, its still so hard to understand."

"No shhhhh, listen again." They were both dead silent as they listened closely. "Now I've listened to space for a long time and that is sure as hell no star." They listened again more closely.

"Wait your speakers are bad, send that audio to my computer." his colleague did so and when it was there they played it once more.

"By God, that is an alien tongue. Get the government on the line, I think they may want to know."

----

Kotalian Capital City of Kontribution, Kotalis

"I suppose we ought to send them a message back. I mean, yes they are aliens, but we were able to figure out where that signal came from. They are right on our doorstep. If they are coming here to annhilate us, the least we could do is invite them for a cup of coffee first." the Internal Minister said.

"Stop it. This is nothing to joke with. I do, however agree with you." President Josef Herschel said.

"Mr. President, you can't be serious. These are aliens. I think we should be gathering our warships." said the Defense Minister.

"If they are so advanced as to come to our planet from their own system, where ever it may be, they surely came equipped to fight. Not to mention we can't even see their ship." the Internal Minister retaliated.

"I guess the best thing to do is to contact them. And we can only hope that they have some way of translating our language into their own." said President Herschel.

----

"Greetings. We received your message we however lack the means of translating it. We request that you respond to this message or else we will be forced to attack your ship."

Talent Zhang raises an eyebrow at Thorgood as they receives the message, as if to say "Why did you bother with sending an untranslated message?" but otherwise remains silent, content to let him reply to the Kotalian message.

"Dammit, I hate using the old equipment," Thorgood says. He flips a few switches. "NOW the Universal Translator is hooked up to the damn radio transmitter."

This time, he transmits directly to where the response was sent from first.

(OOC: Delt, the Universal Translator translates anything in one language to whatever language your people speak by way of brainwaves. It isn't using words to translate, but ideas. So it ignores needing to know the language. Of course, grammar isn't always perfect, but it works.)

OOC: I was not fully aware of how the universal translator worked. I assumed it needed something like a sample of the language for it to work.

"Greetings. If you wish to speak then we can invite you to our space station. We will transmit the coordinates of which station it is with this message."

Thorgood invites one person from the accompanying nations to come with him to the coordinates. After passing around simmershields, he then teleports himself any anyone else coming along to the coordinates provided.

To the Kotalians, the aliens would appear as though transported by a ray of light.

Talent Zhang politely rejects the shimmershield for her own probability sheath. When they arrive, she stays quiet at first, waiting for the others to speak.

The Rhean delegation kindly declines teleportation. They instead send over a shuttle with Master Rand Ko of the Imperial Knights.

Well in any case, the group appears at the coordinates very shortly after the message was received.

"Hello foreign beings, I am Representative Calcul of the Kotalian People. May I ask what bring you all here?"

"In short," Thorgood responds through the UT, "we detected that another group of aliens, whom we refer to as the Hive because of their apparent hiveminds, may be traveling towards your system and may attempt to eliminate your civilization.

"The good people of Alpha Centauri were attacked in a similar manner," Thorgood continues, gesturing respectfully towards Talent Zhang.

"My own purpose for this meeting was that you not be alarmed when our coalition fleet appears in your space in your defense. The Centauri may be able to help you plan better, and the Rheans," Thorgood continues," gesturing towards the Knight Ko, with possibly a tad less respect than he had obviously granted Zhang, but still respectful, "likely wish to help you also."

Talent Zhang adds on, "From what I have heard in a discussion with one of their Queens, we have reason to suspect that they may covet your lands in order to populate them, as from our understanding they appear to have a large population and need the adequate resources to sustain it. What worries us is that their attack on your nation is (from what we can tell) unprovoked, as in our past situation we admit that we gave them, albeit unintentionally, legitimate provocation for attacking us. In any case, we shall attempt to provide you any useful information about their tactics we possibly can from our past engagement so that you can best defend yourselves against them."

Calcul took his seat heavily. That was possibly the worst thing he had heard in his life. He thought about all of the things in his life for a moment before he replied, "So your telling me that an alien race which is in serious need of more planets has targeted our system for extermination?" He brought his right hand up to his face to support his head while he went through the many heavy thoughts in his mind. "Well I guess the obvious question I should ask is... how long do we have?"

OOC: Right so its about 3 days till the Hive arrives. You may or may not be able to detect the energy points for the incoming slipspace exits. However if you can detect them, you could compare them to the energy signatures observed at Alpha Centauri to give a rough estimate.

"Our estimate is that they will arrive in two to five days. We have not had the time to truly study their faster than light capabilities, however, so we may be off."

"We are reasonably certain that our coalition can deter the aliens," Thorgood says, noting the distraught figure of the Kotalian. "They have numbers, but we have other advantages. For instance, teleportation. Other things that you may have assumed, too, like cloaking, which is why you can't find my ship in orbit, and you haven't tried shooting at us, so you haven't discovered our personal shields."

Talent Zhang nods, and says, "We also have somewhat of a tactical advantage, given that we have fought them before but they have not fought most of our coalition. Also, in terms of efficiency, our weapons are capable of delivering considerably more firepower than any of theirs. In summary, I expect that we should be able to defeat them. Until the battle starts, however, it is of great importance that you begin to prepare your nation domestically for this battle. Having your planet break down into chaos while the coalition wins would still not really be a favorable result for your people, no?"

Two to five days? That was such a short amount of time. "Right I will let the government know about this and will inform them of your presence in the system. We can put our entire fleet forward for defense, but how much is your coalition going to supply?" he thought about everything he had just heard and was still trying to make sense of it. "Your words are kind, however do not tempt the fates. If it comes down to it, we should be able to fight well in atmosphere. Our people have far too much expierience with it..."

Talent Zhang shrugs, and replies, "The Planetary Governate is willing to devote a significant portion of our fleet for this. The... more militant minded among our nation are clamoring for a chance to properly exercise our newfound military potential, and we can offer up quite a few ships for the coalition. Our flagship, the UNS Odysseus, a battlecruiser, the UNS Charybdis, a carrier, two cruisers, and five frigates."