Their Light Will Be Ours [Stellaris]

Clawpair Orbital
1 Month since First Contact

One of the other Directors gives a speech, but you're too busy to watch it. Your life since First Contact has been an utter blur of research and development: the Xenology lab is being established, the three priority research teams are all jockeying for your attention, and you're still the head of the Subspace department. You're as busy as a bare-clawed geneticist in the middle of spawning season.

((Hold it Together: 1d100(62) + Rightform(10) + Friends in Odd Places(5) = 77))

You've never been much of an administrator, but no-one has ever accused you of being dim. You delegate as much as you can to those you can trust. Your contacts on the Xenology listserv end up being particularly handy: who knew that a few "fringe nutters" might end up in charge of two whole research fields?

A month passes, and the first results begin to roll in. The First Contact package is as universally translatable as you know how to make it, given that you have no samples of the alien language. As for the teams on station engineering, their two questions turn out to have the same answer - the aliens have developed an inflatable station!

To justify their findings, your teams point to distinct fold creases in the outer shell of the station, as well as a lack of any sign of internal braces or supports. There is one weld for the airlock, and that's all: the internal atmospheric pressure keeps it rigid.

The aliens did not haul a ludicrous amount of mass into the system, nor did they build their station from local materials. They shipped in a lightweight skin, a few large tanks of compressed gas, and blew up their habitat like a balloon.

Many of your engineers are excited by the implications of the alien alloy: it has to be extremely flexible and lightweight, strong enough to not tear if jostled, and dense enough to shield from cosmic radiation. If we could mimic it, the aliens' inflatable stations might be within our reach - not to mention a significant weight reduction for the radiation shielding aboard our ships.

Meanwhile, the military theorists are breathing a sigh of relief. If the aliens have gone to so much trouble to develop a lightweight, compressible station architecture, that likely means space aboard jumpships is still at a premium for them. Their drives unquestionably have a tactical advantage over yours, but their logistical advantage is likely far less than it first appeared.

Unsurprisingly, a new drift of grant proposals has buried your desk again.

Crisis Research Options:

[ ] What is that alloy? (Industry/Void Engineering Joint Project)
The station in the Jaxus system uses an alloy unknown to our science. Put our engineers on the problem of determining its composition and reverse-engineering it.

[ ] What are they, biologically? (Genetics/Computing Joint Project)
Initial indications are that the species occupying the Jaxus station is notably different from ours. Put a team on isolating potential life signs.

[ ] How does their jump technology work? (Subspace/Computing Joint Project)
The drones observed in Jaxus B had jump technology far eclipsing our own. Dedicate a team to reverse-engineering their miniaturized microjump drives.

[ ] What are the drones doing? (Sociology/Industry Joint Project)
The drones in the system were witnessed performing complex synchronized maneuvers, but we are unsure as to their purpose: a leading hypothesis is that they are some form of asteroid mining operation. Dedicate a team to understanding their motives.

[ ] Why put a station there? (Void Engineering/Genetics Joint Project)
Multiple researchers are perplexed by the positioning of the station, orbiting a toxic world rather than the habitable planet or moon in the same system. Why? Does this alien species prefer ammonia atmospheres?

[ ] What are the implications of their Drive tech? (Sociology/Subspace Joint Project)
Given that they have a precise, tiny Warp Drive, what conclusions can we draw about the aliens' society? How might this technology have affected their development?

[ ] Why not use the drones to build the station? (Void Engineering/Subspace)
Some of your scientists are confused by the fact that the station was shipped in from afar, since the drones observed in the system would unquestionably do a fantastic job of asteroid mining. Did the drones come after the station? Is there some limitation on their technology we don't know? Perhaps they aren't fully autonomous, and the aliens don't have FTL comms either!

[ ] How do the drones work? (Industry/Computing)
The sophisticated maneuvers of the alien drones display an understanding of robotics far beyond their own. Are they truly autonomous? Are we sure the alien species is not significantly smaller than us, making these their fighter craft? If they truly are autonomous drones, how on do they do that?

[ ] What can we reasonably infer about their society? (Genetics/Sociology)
Even with our limited information, an educated guess as to the alien polity's structure is better than nothing at all. Alloys have to be produced somehow. Materials have to be shipped. They have to maintain comfortable habitats for themselves, the same as we do. Every detail of how they do that is part of their culture.

((Select any number of options that do not repeat a team. You may allocate any one option to the newly-formed Xenology team.))

Clawpair Orbital, 2 Months After First Contact
You stare at the report on your desk through tired eyes. There's no way this can be right. Can it?

((Holding It Together: 1d100(3) + Rightform(10) + Friends in Odd Places(5) - Fatigue (5) = 13))

Unfortunately, the damage report is all too real. One of the subspace labs has had some form of accident, which is why you've been dragged out of bed in the middle of station night. As you read through the report, the true scope of the destruction becomes clear...

((Where was the issue? 1d4: 1))
((The Vicissitudes of The Universe: 1d100(9) + Hardshell(10) - Fatigue (5) = 14))
((Did You See It In Time? 1d100 (NATURAL 1) + Tidewatch(14) - Fatigue (5) = 10))

As of the latest estimate, three-quarters of the subspace laboratory has been eaten by a microsingularity, which has potential to compromise the entire Orbital. Kalthas Jagta, head of Computing, was in the lab at the time: they are missing, presumed spaghettified. If you had been there, you too would likely be dead right now.

You contemplate your own mortality only briefly, then shake the fog of sleep from your brain and start directing rescue efforts.

((Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! Better of 2d100(66, 57)[Self-Modification Meme] + Cutspawn(22) - Fatigue (5) = 83))
((Beg, Borrow, Blackmail, Steal: 1d100(72) + Frontways(20) - Fatigue(5) = 87))

The former lab is sealed, and the section is cleared of all nonessential personnel. Precision detonations sever it from the rest of the station: the entire rest of the habitat is repositioned 500 kilometers down-orbit. A storage section is repurposed, and the subspace laboratory is put back into active service. It takes a day.

Yes, some of the new lab equipment does look rather familiar to some of the civilians, only with the serial numbers filed off. Yes, no-one is quite sure where those explosives came from. Nobody cares: the bulk of the research has been saved. Not only has it been saved, but many of the surviving scientists have a new and fascinating subject of study. After all, no-one has ever examined a singularity up close before.

Though the warp drive research has been... inconclusive, your three other teams have produced better results - no less astonishing in their own way.

The drones and the station are not associated. The drones are millennia older than the station, and are still performing some ancient form of military drill or sporting event. Though the details of how exactly this was determined are beyond you - something about micrometeorite weathering and maneuver patterns? - the implications are clear.

The "technologically superior" species you encountered in the Jaxus system likely does not possess the accurate, miniaturized warp drive that you were so concerned about. The station is in orbit around the toxic world because that is where the drones are. The drones are there because there is nothing there to damage if one of them were to malfunction.

So, in short: You know even less than you thought you knew about the alien species in Jaxus B, but at least now you know that you know less than you thought you knew.

-----

Crisis Turn Results:
Kalthas Jagta MIA, presumed dead.
Clawpair Orbital has lost 25 Raw Material Storage.
Klaxis Prime has gained an additional anomalous satellite: the Jagta Singularity.
The Jagta Singularity Subspace Research Project is now available.

Crisis Research Turn 3:
[ ] What is that alloy? (Industry/Void Engineering Joint Project)
The station in the Jaxus system uses an alloy unknown to our science. Put our engineers on the problem of determining its composition and reverse-engineering it.

[ ] What are they, biologically? (Genetics/Computing Joint Project)
Initial indications are that the species occupying the Jaxus station is notably different from ours. Put a team on isolating potential life signs.

[ ] How does their jump technology work? (Subspace/Computing Joint Project)
The precursor drones observed in Jaxus B had jump technology far eclipsing our own. Dedicate a team to reverse-engineering their miniaturized microjump drives.

[ ] How do the drones work? (Industry/Computing)
The sophisticated maneuvers of the precursor drones display an understanding of robotics far beyond their own. How smart are they, and can we reverse-engineer that intelligence?

[ ] What can we reasonably infer about the alien society? (Genetics/Sociology)
Even with our limited information, an educated guess as to the alien polity's structure is better than nothing at all. Alloys have to be produced somehow. Materials have to be shipped. They have to maintain comfortable habitats for themselves, the same as we do. Every detail of how they do that is part of their culture.

Non-Research actions are available:
[ ] Send another scouting party. The data you have is insufficient to draw any real conclusions.
[ ] Make Second Contact, this time deliberately. Send a xenologist and a computer scientist on the Carcina with the Contact Package.
[ ] Stand down the emergency research teams. You've had one major accident already: let's not have another.