mytholder: Now We Are Here, General Transmission #29

Mytholder (

mytholder) wrote,
@ 2008-04-16 13:44:00

Entry tags:

now we are here

Now We Are Here, General Transmission #29
Following on from this...

The pursuing shuttle circles high above the crash site, waiting for the rescue team to show up. Hundreds of klicks away, security and medical crew pile into a fast-response shuttle and take off, racing south and west over the jungle and the river deltas.

The plume of steam and smoke from the crashed pod rises high into the blue skies of Serendipity, and soon attracts attention. A water craft similar to a catamaran approaches. It appears to be of relatively primitive construction, and is crewed by the faintly humanoid entities glimpsed in an initial probe survey, but not encountered since.

(Science officer zarkia c/links a more detailed analysis of that data. The image shows six individual creatures. They each have three spindly legs, and it looks like their 'arms' are actually a single limb that sprouts from the chest, then bifurcates. They are taller than a human, approximately 2.5 metres on average, but are so thin and spindly that you would guess they are considerably lighter. Their hide is a greenish tan colour. None of them are wearing any garments or coverings, but two of them are carrying spears or sticks, and another two are dragging a net between them. Something large and whitish is wriggling in the net. There is one smaller member in the group, possibly a juvenile. It's lagging behind as the rest drag the net along the sandbar.

The way they move reminds you of water strider insects on a pond.)

The catamaran halts a short distance from the floating shuttle, and two of the creatures make obscure preparations before stepping out of the boat and walking over the water. They clamber awkwardly on board, pausing to remove something from their feet before investigating.

(The rescue shuttle informs the pursuit shuttle that its ETA is only another few minutes, and urges them to hold position.)

One of the creatures stabs the hull of the downed vessel repeatedly with a stick or spear, then turns and gestures to the catamaran. The other pulls at various protrusions, and by chance happens across an access hatch. He pulls it open...

...and his head jerks back and sprays alien ichor, and his lifeless body falls backwards into the ocean. The other alien is startled, and the catamaran crew raise a sail and turn to flee just as the ready shuttle flies into view.

The triped alien is cowering on the prow of the downed craft, out of the line of fire from the hatch. Someone inside that shuttle is armed and still alive. The catamaran is turning to catch the wind, and looks like it's ready to run and leave the triped behind. The body of the second triped bobs up and down in the midst of other debris from the crash.

The rescue shuttle crew need consensus guidance.

Poll #1171998
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Tactics?

View Answers

Hang back and observe
3 (9.7%)

Ensure the catamaran does not get away
1 (3.2%)

Chase away the alien
1 (3.2%)

Attempt to contact the alien
3 (9.7%)

Fire a gas grenade into the craft
23 (74.2%)

(Post a new comment)

	bluegargantua 2008-04-16 01:17 pm UTC (link)
	It's good to know that even now, in the far future, we refuse to compromise on the Traditional Human ways of Doing Things. cripes Tom (Reply to this)

	kshandr 2008-04-16 01:21 pm UTC (link)
	We require a sample of this new lifeform. A damaged one is in the water already but live ones would be a considerably higher priority. Ensure the catamaran does not get away. Capture and observe, then vivisect. (Reply to this)

cerandor
2008-04-16 01:33 pm UTC (link)

Lesson of History: Any contact between a primitive civilisation and a more-advanced invader is inevitably catastrophic for the former. Frankly, what we need to do now is minimise contact between us and them until we actually have a strategy for dealing with this unexpected factor.

Disable the treacherous git in the downed craft and try to avoid killing the survivor clinging to the craft. It would be great to establish friendly contact with the Tripeds - undoubtedly they could tell us a lot about surviving on Serendipity - but our priority right now is our own well-being and wiping out the last traces of our saboteurs. Return the living one to his/her/its own kind and keep the dead body if possible, but let's not encourage the natives into acts of heroic yet suicidal bravery, hmm?

Then again, it might not be too suicidal if they outnumber us far enough. Once everything is settled, we need to start scanning for triped settlements.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	mytholder 2008-04-16 03:38 pm UTC (link)
	Any large settlements would have shown up before now. They're probably living in caves, or in small huts in the forested islands. -Prospero has always wanted to star in a Zulu remake (Reply to this)(Parent)

	arken_thell 2008-04-16 01:53 pm UTC (link)
	Take out who/what ever is in the shuttle. We can deal with the other race in the less immediate future. For now we need to contain the area and find out what the hell is going on down there! (Reply to this)

ninja_comedian
2008-04-16 02:26 pm UTC (link)

There will be plenty of time to study the tripeds. Our initial survey showed us where they are roughly - we can find them again to study later on.

Priority now has to be discovering what the person inside the craft is up to. We don't need any more nasty unexpected surprise like we found with Prospero - I would think that someone who chose to flee from us like this might know a thing or two about we'll need to know to avoid those surprises.

(Reply to this)

rivet_geek
2008-04-16 03:03 pm UTC (link)

Fire a gas grenade into the shuttle, then collect up the downed alien in as respectful manner as possible and get the surviving alien in as gentle way as possible. Order one of the shuttles to track the catamaran, then get hold of any xenoanthropologists (or regular anthropologists) to try to formulate the best way of contacting the Tripeds to return their brethren and communicate the misunderstanding.

Oh, and offer up the douche that shot the alien as a sacrifice for the Tripeds?

(Reply to this)

trixibell
2008-04-16 05:45 pm UTC (link)

taking out the guy in the shuttle and showing our contrition is a god start, but here's a thing: if we act fast enough, they won't even know it was one of us in there, and we'll look like godly heroes from the sky.

Which actually makes me nervous. There's gotta be some bad karma involved in impersonating a deity, right?

And as for capturing the remaining guy, I think rescuing him should be our priority, and making sure he knows that's what we're doing. Put him on a raft and tow him after his friends, something non-invasive like that. Experience in running security has taught me one thing: invasion of personal space is always taken as a sign of aggression, even if its well meant.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

kshandr
2008-04-16 05:53 pm UTC (link)

Are we really concerned about "angering" this Triped race?

If we ensure the catamaran doesn't get away and we capture and observe whatever tripeds we have, they will be assumed to have vanished by others of their kind. Maybe their boat sank. Maybe the Gods came and ate them.

Unless they have some kind of stone and wood communicator on their catamaran. Perhaps they have some kind of super-telepathy.

Perhaps we should stop being such liberals and get on with it. Karma... for shame.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

evilrobotshane
2008-04-16 08:01 pm UTC (link)

Well maybe they do have some kind of super-telepathy. It's fairly clear that we're dealing with something brand new to us here, so let's not go making any assumptions. You never get a second chance to make a first impression - if we put on the kid gloves now we can always start into the unnecessary exploratory surgery at any point in the future, but if we play this aggressively we won't be able to change our minds the other way in the future.

Anyway, it's not as if we've infinite scientific resources here where we can work as long and hard as we like on as many specimens as we can find. Slice up the dead one, and if we decide after that we want to get into a live one we can go get one. Unless we know by then that they're able to explode us by thinking about it, in which case we'll all be able to sigh happily and chuckle about how clever we were not to further antagonise the guy on the hull who could have gone all apocalypse now on us.

We should not make assumptions about what we have here. Although overcaution got us into (this particular part of) this mess, I think discretion is wise here when dealing with this race.

The guy in the ship, police brutality please.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

(Anonymous)
2008-04-16 06:35 pm UTC (link)

Gas grenade the SOB in the shuttle and get him/her/it (Did AESIR use sentient machines?) in irons.

As for the indigene, let's listen to the better angels of our nature here. We certainly don't want to start vivisecting sentients, so let's scratch that idea straight off.

I'm also not big on the idea of detaining or even making close contact with he/she/it/they until we get a handle on their biology. There's a remote chance of xenoosis. (Spark's notes version: we could give it some nasty disease or vice versa.)

So, let's impress it with our vengeful wrath and make a show of beating the crap out of the shooter. Let's get someone in an sterile EVA suit to get samples from the dead 'un and let's let the live one go, tracking it remotely if possible.

Remind the rescue team that the live one is probably bricking it right now (Outside Context Problems will do that to you), so be ready for unpredictable behaviour.

P.

(Reply to this)

	bcwalker 2008-04-16 09:10 pm UTC (link)
	Secure the pod and subdue its inhabitant. Secure the site; let the alien go if unarmed and poses no threat. If it wants the corpse, let it take the corpse and leave. We can find specimens later, when more important issues are resolved. (Reply to this)

	craigoxbrow 2008-04-16 09:36 pm UTC (link)
	We have to shut the shuttle survivor down ASAP. Then let's stay away from the aliens until we can assemble a First Contact group. (Reply to this)

	amcathra 2008-04-17 04:47 pm UTC (link)
	Secure the pod, postpone proper first contact till we are ready. The natives seem primitive - we hopefully have the luxury of taking our time and doing this right. Incidentally I don't see these aliens competing very well with the globe creatures - given the catamaran maybe they have an island culture? (complete speculation here). Now where was I? "Prospero, pawn to king four" (Reply to this)

	inannajones 2008-04-18 04:16 pm UTC (link)
	Secure the craft and whoever's still in there. They seem to have given a fairly clear indication of their intentions. Study the corpse of the Triped, and see what kind of conclusions our Science People can come up with. Based on those, possibly act further, possibly not. (Reply to this)

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