The Secrets' Crusade

Where could you begin? The answer to that question had seemed simple enough during your descent, a solid consensus built on your experiences in the tomb of the Zlathbu. And you'd been prepared for different options. You just weren't sure if there could have been any option so poisonously tempting as what your guide had just offered.

:But is it the right choice?: Vega considered, ahead of your Heartcircle's internal debate curve by the simple merit of being the primary node for its communication.

:Can we afford not to take it?: Mir asked in reply. :We know what happened here at the end,: a shudder swept through you as you shied away from that memory, :but nothing of how it started. Witnessing that history would be one thing, and it's what we agreed on before coming down here if the options were the same. But if we can experience those actions, don't we owe that opportunity due consideration?:

His words cut to the heart of the matter. The truth of this place's ending might not be fully known even to the Shiplords - the fact that an Uninvolved had involved itself so completely implied that the Shiplords had not been capable of stopping the Sphere from completing their horrific creation. But as horrible as that had been, Mir was right. That was just the end, and you were here to try and find another way out of this war.

:This conflict is far, far older than the Zlathbu.: You agreed. :And according to what we found in their home system, the War of the Sphere caused many of the changes that we've suffered for.: It was painfully obvious that that conflict was the source of the ban on use of the Second Secret, assuming one hadn't already existed.

:And we were sent to understand why. No matter how abhorrent their actions, we need to understand why they think it's justified.: Kalilah heaved a bitter mental sigh. :But do we want to do this now?:

:Will it truly help to wait?: Lea asked, still in the second between one breath and the next. :We know that this option exists now. We know we will take it. You have accepted its costs, regardless of what they might be.: Not so hidden within that statement was the frustration of a concerned physician, one you knew well from the other side. Still not good at accepting it. :So why are we waiting?:

:She's right.: Vega pulsed agreement through the words, translating through all the fears she knew you felt, yet the resolution behind it too. :The heart does what the heart wants. That's as it should be, and we've fought for that ideal. No matter how bitter it is now, we know that truth.:

Something in that statement rocked against the patchworked pain that had taken root so deep inside your soul. And for a moment, you let it and your friends guide you. You needed to see everything else to make sense of the end.

"Experience." You said to Kicha, the Shiplord who had greeted you. They swept their gaze over you all for a few moments, long enough to make you fear that your Masques had failed. Then they motioned in assent, and turned towards the closest of the smaller buildings that ringed the towers.

"Come, then. This way."

Kicha led you into the compound, and then directly to the closest building, down a walkway so well used that the composites had actually been worn away by countless footsteps. How many billions must it have taken to do that, you wondered. Groups of Shiplords passed back and forth along the wide path, some larger, but few smaller than your own, and each led by a member of the Hearthguard. A section of wall irised open as you approached it, revealing what a human would call an atrium, built wide to connect the dozens of corridors that branched off of it throughout the structure.

:Look.: Vega said. The word brought a direction with it, and you turned your head to watch a small party of Shiplords jump from the ground floor all the way to the top level of the building. Sensors examined it, identifying the use of Sixth Secret emitters, but that wasn't the interesting thing.

:No stairs.: You agreed, glancing around to confirm it. :No links at all between the levels, and none of the platforms that we saw used on the last world.:

:Maybe they aren't needed for internal spaces,: Mir suggested. :Though there must be some sort of safety in case their suit systems fail?:

:Their suits can take high-intensity energy fire, Mir.: Kalilah pointed out wryly. :Do you think they'd worry about something so trivial?:

:We would.: Vega sent, as your guide directed you towards one of the ground level corridors. :But humanity is still acclimatising to Secrets-based technology being widely available. The Shiplords have lived with their abundance for millions of years. We were seeing the beginnings of cultural change in response before the Third Battle of Sol, but nothing close to this.:

:Not yet, at least: You added quietly.

"Here." Kicha came to a stop, a gesture from the Shiplord opening the wall to reveal a surprisingly plain room.

:Wait.: Kagiso, Vega's Unison, spoke. And dozens of points across the walls of the room flared with light. :Look there. Hologram emitters, or something like them.:

:So it is a simulation.: Kalilah said. You'd all guessed what this choice might mean, but this still didn't answer everything. A simulation, yes, that had been the most likely. But of what?

"To you I grant this space," Kicha hadn't stopped talking. "To experience the truth of this horrific war, and the hopes of all Hearthguard, that you might find another way for it to have ended."

Those words. They were so similar, and for a moment you found yourself far away, standing wreathed in power within the void of space, holding one of your dearest comrades in your arms. Spitting fiery words at the savaged elements of a Regular Fleet, withdrawing from Sol.

"If you believe you can find a better way, then please, find it swiftly."

That had been the message they'd left you with. The message that had, in many ways, made you willing to believe what the Uninvolved had told you. And here, perhaps, you had found the source of it.

"We shall try." You said, following your instincts in the words, and then again in the movement of a short bow. "All of us. To seek a better way."

For a moment your host froze again, so briefly that you almost missed it, before the feeling of a smile born of ageless anguish spread across their form.

"Go then." The Shiplord said tenderly, almost like the words were fragile. "Seek what none before you could find."

That was the end of that conversation, you all felt it. So you did as you were bid, all striding into the room, moving together. You felt something there, through the veil of pain that still fought you. The vitality and energy of combat, but not as you'd known it most recently. This was a battle, one that no Shiplord had ever won.

Could you?

The emitters all around you flared to life as you thought that question, and the world changed. A bare room slipped away, and a bridge appeared around you, filled with forms like your own. Shiplords, but there was something odd about the technology around you. It felt old, somehow, less elegant. A million years gives much time to perfect designs.

"The Deepscan Array was right, Captain." A Shiplord from the simulation reported, their attention clearly turned to you. It was an odd bridge, compared to human models. Those had a firm hierarchy to them, flowing out from the centre. Shiplord design shared the latter, but it focused all bridge crew around a central control column, allowing every member of the crew to see each other easily.

An image flashed up at the centre of that column, a star system that you recognised from your entrance through the shield around this star system, but there were so many differences. Ships flooded across the space between the two primary worlds, streaming through a cornucopia of orbitals and platforms like some enormous, multi-limbed beast of shifting lights.

"Two fully habitable worlds," another Shiplord said, so clearly excited by what they could see. "Massive orbital use. And look, here." The image focused on the system's star, where enormous gantries had been constructed. "They're building a convertor!"

Had you all been shoved into your own simulations, you wondered. Wait, you corrected yourself. There, on another panel, you saw Vega. Kalilah, quietly absorbing her own. How had they chosen to place all of you? And why were you in a position of command? Because you'd given voice to the decision you'd all made?

:You can pause, if you wish.: Sidra said, the Unison almost absentminded in their reply. You could feel why. Data poured from the simulation, into your Masque, and then into you. So much data. This wasn't the only simulation, there were others. From shipboard actions like this, what had to be Shiplord first contact with the Sphere, to massive strategic simulations. The later stages of the war?

And there, there! There was the Shiplord perspective of the end. Quasi-tactical, by the header. A command simulation? And this simulation directly interacted with the Masques, allowing for full use of your accelerated perceptions. You had time to experience it all, to plumb the depths of a war that had defined Shiplord society. But time enough to see it all, did not mean time enough to know it. Even your accelerated perceptions weren't up to the task of absorbing more than a millennia of war. Sidra was already copying as quickly as they could, spreading the information across your Heartcircle's storage for the analysts back on the Adamant.

But what did you do with it now? The simulation was still moving around you, reports flowing in from the memories or recordings of Shiplords long since dead. Was it truly giving you a chance to try to change things? To find a different path through the events that led up to a war whose remembered end had scarred you so deeply. Moments later, you had your answer.

:There's something around the simulations, linking them all together,: Sidra said, a deep awe flooding across your link. :It feels almost like Vision, but so much more.:

:And so much less.: Vega said, her sadness a physical force. :It's all her power, and none of her will.:

:Would you want a creation like this to have a will?: Lea asked. She drew your attention back to the simulations, to the links between them, and more. :This is their attempt to find a solution on their own. A solution that a perfect analyst couldn't think up.:

:It raises some other questions, though.: Kalilah said, taking those implications squarely by the horns. :If they can create simulations like this, why don't they use them to keep younger races in line? Even if they need incredibly precise models, initial Tribute Fleet contact could give them that. They leave control mechanisms behind, but their subnet was so much less than this.:

:It has to be something cultural.: You answered immediately. :We know the Tribute Fleets hold a place of near-reverence within their culture; this could be related. It's hypocrisy at a truly awesome scale, of course, but that's nothing new. There is a difference between predictive modelling and their chosen forms of control, of course, but either is oppression on a scale where comparisons lose meaning.:

:So what are we meant to do with this, then?: Mir asked. :We came here to learn, and we expected a simulation. Our Unisons can read the simulation headers, too, so we can focus on specific points if we want to. But how much do we want to?:

:I'm not sure.: Vega said cautiously. :There's so much here that we don't fully understand, that we can't fully understand without experiencing it all first. And what would we even call a victory here? We know how this war ended, what the Sphere was trying to create and the horrors they were willing to commit to do so. But did they start from that place, or did the Shiplords make them become that? Surely that has to be our first question.:

:Then we're in the right place, aren't we?:

:Maybe.: Sidra being hesitant was unusual, but you couldn't deny that it made sense here. :There's one other simulation that happens close to this one chronologically, and there's a huge amount of connection between them. Whatever we do here will affect how it plays, but I don't think we can discover the truth of things properly without running through initial contact.:

:And there's another question there.: Kalilah passed a data segment from the simulation around you into the Unison network. :Because this isn't a Tribute craft. It's much more like what the G6 polities sent to find us, just much more advanced. The simulation IDs it as the lead ship of a Contact Fleet detachment.:

You glanced across the central display, then to the scattering of pale dots hovering at the edge of the star system. Glyphs surrounded them as your attention shifted there, designations flowing into your HUD to provide you with details on capabilities and specific designations. And not just designations, these ships had names, too. When had the Shiplords stopped doing that?

:Where do we put our focus, then?: You said, pulling your focus back from that aspect of the current simulation. :Even with full perceptual acceleration, there's a limit to how much we can do here without drawing attention to ourselves. And we have to get a grasp of the wider war, too. We don't know nearly enough to make informed decisions right now:

:I think we can solve most of that using the higher level simulations.: Sidra said. :I can read the headers, and there's more data on them if I dig. There are several strategic scale sims that modify the historic model depending on user input. I can use the standard settings to optimise our pathway to historic normal, let us ground ourselves with the knowledge that we already should have.:

You flashed the look of a question across the shared link.

:I don't see a better option.: Kalilah.

:Nor I.: Lea.

:Seems the best option we have.: Mir and Vega spoke together.

:Then let us begin.:

Time slowed, and the world around you blurred.

From a beginning of curiosity came concern, then suspicion, to be followed by horror as the full truth of the facade was revealed. A desperate escape, from the creations of brilliant minds seeking to chain anything that would stand against how they saw reality, a slavery as subtle as it was obscene. A slavery you had seen variants of - how had they rationalised the use of such things in your present?

Then came war. A war that shook the pillars of the galaxy, with all the horrors that you knew the one your actions had largely begun would bring. Worlds broke and stars burned, scorching entire systems in their death throes. Overstep and counterstroke, back and forth it went as the Shiplords fought to create something that could properly defend their worlds from the hordes at the gates. Their War Fleets had always been unstoppable, and that remained the case, but their territory had grown too large to defend against a conventional assault, and the Sphere was relentless in their growth. And the Hjivin had War Fleets of their own, besides.

World after world lost, to an enemy that held more resemblance to a plague than a sentient species. Many of them surrendered with much of their population, to fates that curdled your blood when you discovered them later. But that later did come, through new ships and fleets forged to combat Hjivin tactics, and their shared mastery of the First Secret. Then, as the war turned, the ending you had seen came to pass. What you had seen within one star system played out across scores more, the death of a species executed in the space of moments.

And from that ending came a great fear, cloaked in history that you did not recognise. Scars millions of years old then fuelled it, and was it truly so irrational? The Uninvolved that had finally acted to bring an end to the conflict had wiped away a race with all the apparent effort of swatting a fly. Who-

And then you were back where you'd begun. The simulation, the first simulation you knew now, enveloped you again. A tremulous gesture brought up the imagery you'd had in front of you a subject eternity ago, and you stared at it, finding it hard not to shake.

The point of this place, you understood now, was to try and find a different solution. To find a way for the war as it had been to be averted. Could you do that here? This simulation was part of a package under the Contact header, but was there anything you could think to try with what you now knew about the Sphere? Could humanity have survived meeting them?

:Depends on the humanity.: Kalilah's voice was steady despite the experience you'd all just shared. :I don't think they'd have had any luck against anyone like you, Mandy. Or Vega. But a pre-Sorrows humanity? We'd have just been another notch.:

:Which means it might not be about stopping the war at all.: Vega suggested, and you could feel her mind leaping down the chains of possibility her Focus opened to her. But this was a matter of ending war, which made another of your Heartcircle far more capable.

:I don't think it is.: Mir agreed. :It's about finding a better way to peace. And I'm not sure if I could find one in this moment. We know what the Hjivin are now,: a wave of nausea surged across the link as you all remembered what you'd seen. :We know what they want, and how they...just don't seem to care what it costs.:

:What if the Shiplords understood what they were facing from the beginning?: Lea asked, eyes shadowed behind the veil of her Masque. :That it was deliberate, all of it.:

:I'm not sure it helps.: You replied heavily. :The Shiplords had to create the Regulars to win this war. Maybe they could have started building them sooner, but design and construction times were never a problem for them. Their bottleneck was moving all those ships into place in time. I don't think any amount of early warning could have saved their colony worlds on this side of the core.:

:So...what then?: Lea demanded, and you could feel the frustration burning in her voice. :There can't be nothing.:

:Maybe not here.: Mir said gently, one hand lifting to manipulate the simulation control. :But I was watching with more than my eyes as we went through these simulations, and my Focus latched on to two points more than the rest. The first is the simulation point right after this one.:

:That one?: You forced yourself not to shiver. Mir nodded.

:Yes.:

Unhappy agreement flashed across the Heartcircle at the confirmation, and you grimaced. You trusted Mir, you just truly did not want to experience that simulation unless you had to. But, you reminded yourself, that was why you'd come here. And this was Mir's Focus to a tee.

:Sidra, could you set historical defaults for the current simulation and move us to the next one?:

The sim was already shifting as you formed the request, the close command space fading into a more spaced environment. Something like the ready room on the Adamant, you thought. And there you all were, sat around it, the nanoshells of the projected Shiplords reflecting deep concern.

It was about three human months after first contact with the Sphere, and the first true strands of suspicion were beginning to take root among the various Contact Fleet crews. The Sphere looked remarkably good on paper, a Second Secret primary polity that was capable of massive industrial output and appeared entirely open to diplomatic overtures. But there were rats in the walls, or something like them, and none of the detachment's Captains had quite been able to ignore them. So they'd gone digging, as was sometimes Contact's remit.

"All of the groupwide analysis point to the same thing." The posture of the detachment's intelligence lead was deeply withdrawn, a protectivity bordering on something very close to fear. "The Hjivin are hiding something, something integral to how their culture functions. I don't think anyone without Contact's experience with this could have found it, and we had to go looking. It wasn't obvious in the least. I know there have been disagreements in command channels about possible reasons, but I can say this with total certainty. This is not a mark of cultural shame, it's something still active in their current societal matrix. And they did not want us to find it."

"So where do we go from here?" One of the captains, not one of your group, asked. "Command has been asking for a formal recommendation for weeks now. And with respect, Rhyn, something that their culture didn't want us to find doesn't provide satisfactory reasoning to deny their current requests."

"But it does give us leave to investigate further." Rhyn replied sharply. "If the detachment commander wishes us to do so." And with that, attention swung towards you.

You knew that in true history, the Shiplord whose form you were currently wearing had chosen to undertake a limited covert probe into the nature of what the Sphere was hiding. It had succeeded, but not without consequence, and the whole point of this was to try something different. And you knew, as everyone who had likely ever entered this room, what the Hjivin truly had to hide.

So what would you do?

[] Contact Fleets were diplomats as much as anything else, but were any of their number ever as skilled as you? What might happen if you simply ask?
[] Turn the full strength of the Contact Fleet's expertise to investigating the rotten truth beneath the Sphere's skin. They are close to matching the Shiplords of this time, but only that.
[] The Hjivin emissaries will not give you the answers you seek. But might their staff, or the servants below them? Dangerous to act right under the nose of a near-peer, but it just might work.
[] Write-in

A Note: Having experienced a flash of the entire known history from Shiplord perspective loaded into the simulation chamber, Amanda and the rest now have far more data on what is waiting for them behind these options. Given this and the combination of Sidra and the other Unison Intelligences rapidly copying all the data they can, your access to knowledge is now much higher. I am obfuscating in the narration here for effect, but if you have questions, I will answer as fully within the limits of the extensive sim data you now have access to. If people feel an Informational post on the war would be a benefit I will produce one, just let me know.