Starthought IC

[Gorbaz]

In the far future, intersystem spaceflight has not only been achieved, but perfected. Starships use a Giselle-Ngoyen drive in order to fold space at a local level, and are able to reach distant star systems in a matter of minutes. This has resulted in a large amount of worlds to be colonised by humanity. Also, advances in not only environment control, but also genertic engineering means that almost any environment can be colonised by one sub-spiecies of Human or another. For example, some humans have been bred to be shorter than average, heavily muscled, and have four legs so that they can thrive on high gravity worlds, while others have a layer of silvery skin to resist UV radiation, or are tall and thin with very little muscle mass to operate at length within the deeps of space.

Earth is still considered the home of Humanity, and those that come from it’s populace are referred to as “primes”. They are the genetic stock that all others are descended from, and it is they who are the most common on the explorer ships and colony frigates. While near-Earth worlds have been discovered and many of them colonised, none of them are quite the same as Earth, and so their populations have undergone some form of change while still being instantly recongnisable as Human. These people are called the “gens”, after the first generation of humans to leave Earth. These people lacked the genetic modifications to enable them to live on non-Earth worlds, and so remained largly the same albeit shaped a little by their environments

Humanity has come to accept the diverse range now within it’s gene pool. It seems that, no matter the world in question, Humanity can adapt to not only live comfortably on it’s surface or in it’s atmosphere, but also to thrive there, no matter the physical changes or technological adaption required.

Alas, the cloud attached to the silver lining of space exploration is that, in this section of the Milky Way at least, no advanced alien life has been found. It seems that, on nearly every world encountered there is something living there of alien origin, but only simple microbial life on most, algae and very early plant life at best. Humanity, as far as they are aware, is alone. Some claim that this is evidence of a greater power that created and nurtured Humanity through it’s early stages. Others say that it is mere chance where Humanity evlved, and that there may be entire other civilisations out there in other galexies that are just too far away to detect. Still others say that Humanity could develop nowhere else other than Earth, as the different conditions would result in different evolution. Either way, even with space exploration and colonisation at it’s heaight, the age old questions exist – Why are we here? Why us?

Due to the lack of advanced alien life, military technology advancement took a back seat to advancements in flight, colonisation, and other civilian technology branches. This resulted in starships being produced in the early days at great expense to the civilian populations and outfitted with little more in the way of defence than mass-drivers for clearing asteroids and other space debris, with the majority of the internal structure given over to living space, hydroponics, cold-sleep chambers, labs, and other rooms dedicated to ensuring the survivability and longeivity of those on board. It is only in recent days that military technology has started to advance again as isolated colonies turn to space piracy, or revolts against extremely oppressive governments are required to be put down. Solid ammunition guns are still the ranged weapon of choice, but laser, plasma, and sonic tech are slowly being intergrated. Of course, with each world being different, a standardised weapon that works well on one world, may not be effective on another. As such, each planet has been encouraged to develop their own local weapon styles, resulting in an explosion of arms manufacturing for both local defence and galactic law enforcement – some of which are barely even recognisable as weapons, while others are grown rather than built.

As with any fledgling empire, legends about the early days spring up and get spun differently depending on who is telling the story. One such tale is of the starship “Starthought”. The ship itself was launched after the development of the G-N drive, and was the biggest thus far of it’s class. The G-N drives were not yet standard technology on starships, as everything except colony and transport ships were designed to be interplanetary craft, and not supposed to be able to leave their home systems. The “Starthought” had a crew of 400 Humans, with the capacity to carry over a million colonists, although only a fraction of them in any degree of comfort, as well as having a primitive A.I installed. It was built in the Luna shipyards in record time and without any cutbacks. It’s maiden voyage, however, was what started the stories.

The “Starthought” had a course to travel to a fairly distant star system which was believed to have habitable near-Earth planets within it. It was by no means the furthuest system colonised by Humanity, and seemed to be an easy survey and colonisation. It’s halls were packed by those willing to go on what was considered a low-risk journey to find a new life elsewhere and away from the industrial heart of Earth. The crew were assembled, everyone settled in, and the ship fired up it’s engines, slowly drifiting out of the Sol system. Once at a safe distance, it activated it’s G-N drive, and was catapaulted off towards it’s destination. However, it never arrived. The few stations that were along it’s path were able to trach the ship’s transponder as it passed within range, however all communication ceased once the ship neared it’s destination, and the final buoy did not record their arrival. No-one knew what had happened to the “Starthought”, or the million souls on her and, as such, a day of mourning was held on Earth and every settled world in recognition of the huge loss.

Once Humanity had finished it’s collective mourning, scientists began to examine the data available to them. Many theories were put forward, ranging from the G-N drive imploding and obliterating the ship, to pilot error causing the ship to miss contact with the final buoy and continue off into deep space, forever doomed to look ahead for a world that lay many light-years behind them. None of these theories could be solidly proven, and the ship went down in history as The Great Disaster.

Now, a ship has appeared on a slow course towards the “Starthought”’s original destination – now a densly populated world. It doesn’t respond to any signals even though it appears to have power. It’s design appears to be that of the missing ship, although some parts seem to be missing while others have been replaced, and entire new sections added. The ship is also on a reversal of one of the theorised miscalculated courses that the “Starthought” is believed to have taken. Whatever the reason for the ship’s appearance, a team had been dispatched to investigate the ship, find out why it has arrived, and where it came from

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[-Shuttle Proxima -]

The small, streamlined shuttle raced at faster-than-light speeds through a folded wormhole, thanks to it's G-N drive. The space around it distorting into stange patterns and lights. Such things have become the norm with FTL travel, as the space around the vessel is distorted in a way that the natural laws should not allow before snapping back into place. The shuttle itsself was a fairly new ship, only produced a few years ago and one of the smallest ships outfitted with the G-N drive. It's still large at a full 8 meters from nose to tail, and capable of holding up to 15 people on board. Mounted on the undercarrage are a pair of short range torpedo launchers, and while the ship is armoured and protected against radiation, it wouldn't stand much of a chance if engaged by a pirate cruiser. Still, it was what was available, so it would suffice.

The two man crew had been fairly quiet for the whole trip, concentrating on calculations, but you had heard that the small shuttle was on it's way to investigate a legend of space travel which was long-thought lost. They have been very tight-lipped otherwise, meaning that any furthur investigation into the subject would have to come from discussions with other passengers, or perhaps any other government or military operatives onboard. Or, you could just wait...

[Reaver]

Kalyn sits in her seat timidly eyeing the other passengers. She spends the most time looking at the Android, wondering how many tweaks would it take to break then rebuild the robot before she realizes she's staring. She lowers her eyes and adjusts the giant wrench in between her legs before looking at the person next to her. The guy seems to be wearing a sorta jumpsuit with a standard issue BladeRod resting neaby him. She slowly holds her hand out to him in a means of greeting. "Hey I'm Kalyn....I like the BladeRod, it's a nice piece of work but I could modify it and add a few other deadly parts to it. You know a few tweaks here and there and spinning blades or a flamethrower or something...... But yeah I'm the mechanic around here if you need some tweaked, fixed or hacked."

[Rooiehaan #2]

Kii'inii huffed, this was obviously not a merchant vessel that would take her back to her own planet. For all it was worth, she was too unfamiliar and bedazzled by the high tech 'civilized' world where they had departed, that she by no means figured that there would be more ships coming and going, especially not like this -her planet only had one shuttle after all, which she just crashed. Feeling somewhat like an illiterate in a library, she simply sat on her bench and stared at the people around her. She just knew that her appearance, filled with bird-like features save for the cat-like tail, would incite curiosity -if not the hostility it always came back to. Shifting her weight uncomfortably with those thoughts, she couldn't help but feel uneasy under the gazes of the others. She even noticed an android, one of those high-tech robot things that weren't just outlawed on her planet but outright actively hunted and shut down. But the worst part was that she had no idea where she was going, for everyone was as silent as the grav-
Wait, suddenly one of the girls just started talking. she muttered something, her name. Kalyn? she didn't seem to know where they were going either, apparently.
"i would appreciate if we got back sooner or later. this obviously isn't a ferry back to New Reykjavik..." she muttered to no-one in particular, looking kind of lost

[Reapergod36]

Natasha purred and her tail swayed from side to side playfully. As she approached the bird like woman. "Hello birdie.. Maybe we should get better acquainted....." She said in a seductive tone and she ran a claw, but the side of it not the point. Down Kii's beak, "Quite a pretty bird aren't you.... Can you even talk, are you just a parrot and repeat what I say?" Natasha sat with her legs on either side of Kii's legs. "Why do you want to go back so fast. When you can meet so many interesting people here... Like yourself?" Natasha rubbed her cheek against Kii's beak. Then Kii would see Natasha's pet lying to the left of her. "Don't worry, Nala doesn't bite unless I want her to... My instincts say to pin you down and slap you around with my claws.. But i'm much nicer than that..." Natasha snaps out of it more. "Sorry, I get like that when my instincts flare up." Natasha got off Kii and sat next to her. "So, I am a princess of a planet called Nekotosh and you are?"

[Rooiehaan #2]

"My name is Kii'inii, daughter of the ruler of a planet called New Reykjavik, where instincts tell us to grab kitty cats with our claws and dragg them off high-up before letting them fall several hundred feet down... But i'm much nicer then that" Kii'inii grinned, absently having brushed Natasha's claw out of her face. Her face suddenly tensed up though, and she gave a short, soft and girly sneeze; probably due to the fur rubbed in her face. "Whuff, sorry about that" She said, recuperating. She gave a slight glare at the cat lying next to her before eyeing Natasha. "Nice to meet you, Natasha. Perhaps talking with one with somewhat similar bodily alterations during this trip might be fun, at least" she muttered, giving a somewhat conspiratorial nod at the other, more 'normal' people around.

[Reapergod36]

"Heheh.. I like your style, you take intimidation and throw it right back. It makes you sound funny. And don't worry about the sneeze pretty birdy. Sorry, Kii'inii I don't mind talking with either. So, is that several hundred feet drop instinct true? Natasha said giggling a bit. "One of the others is kinda creeping me out. Its that human over there with the wrench" Natasha whispered. "Why is she staring at the robot like that?" Natasha said crossing her legs, then gesturing to Nala. "Do you like my little kitten? I raised her since I was little." As Natasha says this her right foot that was being held up by her left leg. Accidentally brushed up against Kii's left talon.

[Rooiehaan #2]

"If she knows what's good for her, she's probably planning on disecting that robot. or... dismantling? Whatever you call it" Kii'inii shrugged, before giving her Natasha a wicked grin. "My world has pretty low gravity compared to others, so with minimal effort we have learned to fly -and there's nothing more fun to watch then a helpless little critter plunge down a couple hundred feet to its death. You know, if you're the heartless, harpy kind of girl. Me, i prefer to drop them a little lower -leaves less of a mess and less bones in your meat. To be real honest though, we don't actually have cats on my world. Wish we had, i kind of like cats" She ended on a more optimistic tone. She looked down at her pet and muttered "Guess you like them too, huh..?"

[Reapergod36]

"Yep, and heh- How much do you like cats?" Natasha said scooting closer to Kii. As close to the point where their butts were touching. After all, all that was covering Natasha's pussy was her golden loin cloth that draped in between her legs. "You've already seen my pussy.. Although I am one as well." Natasha got close and whispered in Kii's ear. "Want to see my other pussy....." Natasha giggled and blushed, having fun playing with Kii. Intimidating her and seeing what her response would be.

[Rooiehaan #2]

For a second Kii'inii just looked at Natasha, a little taken aback by her sudden... straightforwardness? She blinked, baffled, before slowly pulling her eyebrow. she looked around her with faked casuality, before a grin slowly formed on her face. "so there's more kitty to the kitty with her kitty, hmm?" She said with a rather obvious double entendre. "What are you saying, miss Natasha? Or hinting, at that. We hardly even know each other, and you already want to drag me off to the nearest bathroom to do who-knows-what?" She asked, the mischievous grin never leaving her face. "Honestly, what am i to think of this...?"

[That_One_Guy]

Garian, wearing his black overcoat, white shirt, blue jeans, and black boots and gloves, sat there in the passenger seat, his eyes closed to rest them, his ears opened to the sounds of the other passengers, listening to their chats, all he can listen for hear in the soundless space. He kept his hands in his coats, one of which was placed on one of his concealed pistols, always ready to pull it out, his hat was tipped forward to hide his face and features, allowing him to appear to be sleeping to the rest of the passengers.

[Reapergod36]

"I am only playing with a pretty birdie. Pawing at the bird as it struggles to escape. I said that to get your reaction, and I must say I am most pleased." Natasha said continuing to purr. "Of course, if you want me to stop being nice. That can be arranged as well....." Natasha beckoned her kitty over to her with her hand. "Come my little Nala." She said as it came over and she began petting Nala. Nala started to purr as Natasha was. "What, did you actually think I was that slutty?"

[Sortaix]

Sort pulled his eyes away from his PDA and looked around the shuttle. He took note of the sleeping man with his hands in his pockets. Pockets mean you can't see what's in the hands. He then looks over to the android as well the mechanic staring at her. He also noted the exchange of words between the cat and the bird, the birds words perking up his ears. He then looked over to the bird-like woman and spoke to her.
"Wait, did you think this shuttle was going somewhere? Yes, then you certainly got on the wrong ship. We are heading to an old starship that has been lost for centuries. I am the official investigator sent to find out what happened."
Sort then pointed to the police emblem on his armored arm.

[Reaver]

Kalyn perks up as she hears someone claim to be the offical investigator. "Oh you must be taking about the Starthought. My family member was the chief enginner on that ship and he was a good one so I don't belive in that theory that it was engine failure. However I heard the pilot was a schmuck so I wouldn't be surprised if they went off course or something. I'm just excited to get on it, all the old technology and parts makes me giddy. I could break them down and probably rebuild the ship in a better way." Her face starts getting flushed as she thinks of all the possiblites. She puts her chin on the butt of her giant wrench and sighs. "Just give me a few nuts and bolts and I can build you a recon drone or something. But I never got your name, Mr.Investigator."

[Sortaix]

Sortaix smiles at the engineer, as she explains her story to him. She obviously loved taking thins apart and building stuff, a true gear head.
"Sortaix, my name is Sortaix Silent. You can call me officer Silent. And you may want to hold off on rummaging through the ship looking for tech. My money is on some sort of pirate force or something taking over the ship. So, you might want to be careful exploring, in case their are any bad people still on board."

[Icaelus]

Denieve grinned excitedly at just about everything in the shuttle..the tech, the equipment..and especially the people! There was a special section in GN Today that covered different types of Gen Humans. And here was two women that evolved into some forms after a bird and a cat playing around, ripe for a few photos..
She raised her camera to her eye, snapping several shots of the two girls and then lowering her camera. The journalist glanced casually out at a window..the Starthought was in viewing range now.
"A lost ship that had housed a million lives, suddenly disappearing..and now it's back. Scoop of the century, here I come.."
Deni smiled, winking at the Starthought. The picture that the Winkshot took would be perfect, of course..

[Rooiehaan #2]

Kii'inii chuckled, leaning back from Natasha. "I figured something like that -or maybe your 'instincts flaring up' again. still, its nice to see some options are open" She mused, before leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed. Her big eyes looked around the room a little more casual then they did before, now that she was a little more accustomed to at least one of them. She listened to the stories of the other passengers, about some sort of derelict spaceship and about some sort of 'scoop'.
She huffed slightly, some of the feathers replacing her hair standing tall. "It would've been nice to know where the ship went before i bought my ticket" She complained, "Because i have no interest in seeing some sort of spaceship mumbo jumbo. if only those pilots would be nice enough to listen when spoken to, i could actually ask them to turn around..."

[shinox23]

Nero's pod opened up and with a yawn and stretch, he slipped into his clothes, put his mask on and covered himself with his cloak "Ah... Wait, who are all of these people?" He thought to himself, Looking around for anyone who could help him and notices a female journalist. "She might be able to help... Hopefully I'm right" He shrugs his shoulders a little and walks over to her "Excuse me, where am I right now?" He taps the woman's shoulder as he says this to catch her full attention

[Icaelus]

A metallic hiss opened up a pod behind Deni, but she was too engrossed in her photography to noticed. Naturally, the firm hand that landed on her shoulder obviously got her full attention, startling her.
"Eek!"
She let out a surprised cry and whatever was in her hands took a little flying lesson..in this case, her camera. With another cry of shock, Deni instantly dropped to the floor, managing to grab her camera just before it smashed into the shuttle's floor.
"Ow..whew. That was lucky."
Deni sat up, sighing in relief as she checked the camera, making sure it was intact before glancing up at the man who had tapped her on the shoulder and caused those five seconds of grief..
"Uh, hi. Sorry about that.."
She gave the man a sheepish smile as she pushed herself to her feet and looked at the man from top to toe. A mask and a cloak. Obviously he wanted some privacy. People wanting their privacy tended to spark her curiosity, of course. The man was suddenly five times more interesting. And he didn't even know where he was!
"Oh, you're on the shuttle, Proxima. We're headed for the Starthought..just over there."
Deni pointed out the shuttle's window at the Starthought, then lowered her arm, stepping closer to the strange man and getting a closer look at him.
"Erm, no offense..but who are you, anyway?"
She looked up at the man's masked face, shrouded in shadows from his hood. Deni blinked her startlingly blue eyes once, the Winkshot taking a discreet picture of the man. Her curiosity was pretty much on fire right now..

[napsii]

Nike tilted her head back, hands firmly settled on her lap. The chatter wasn't of interest to her. She permitted the idea of mingling and casual discussion, but it possessed no bearing on the mission, and so she kept silent. Just as soon as their vessel had begun to populate, she'd recorded a firm idea of each and every individual around her. Most were of only fractional interest, but the combined skills seemed acceptable enough their mission was likely to succeed. She looked down at her arm, squeezing a hand down. She could almost feel the network of energy brimming beneath each. Her right arm in particular, as through it circulated the power subsystems for her Shock Cannon. A clever re-engineering of the emerging plasma cannon, designed to fit within the confines of her chassis.

She turned her head toward the active cryo-pod, which hissed out cold mist as from it, an inhabitant emerged. She was suspicious for only an instant. His clothing was concerning for safety reasons, but she thought little of it. He didn't seem hostile, and she'd examined him while he had been in stasis beforehand. Intent and purpose...unknown, but not notable enough to take action upon.

"He is Nero Tenrou. He possesses a generally non-human outer body structure and a large number of nanomachines circulating through his system." she interposed to Denieve in a clear voice, before looking back to the matte black F-225 perched on her lap, pointed to the floor but ready to go. The holographic sight on top gleamed.

[Icaelus]

"He is Nero Tenrou. He possesses a generally non-human outer body structure and a large number of nanomachines circulating through his system."
A clear female voice spoke from behind her and Deni cast a glance behind her. Nike stood behind her, obviously the source of the voice. That had been all the information she had managed to glean about this female android..her name. The military had been pretty strict about keeping Nike secret till now..which obviously meant that Nike here was about ten times more interesting than this Nero Tenrou person!
"Ooh. Nero Tenrou, huh? Nice rhymes there..oh, I'm Denieve. Deni for short!"
Deni said cheerfully, winking at Nero several more times and getting a few choice shots of him before rapidly turning over to Nike, stepping over smartly to her.
"Hmm. Your name is Nike, right? An android? Haven't actually seen one of those before..but there's always a first for everything!"
She smiled at the android happily, raising her camera in her hands and snapping a perfect picture of Nike looking down at her weapon. Oh, that shot simply oozed militaristic seriousness..