Meeting at Megiddo: A Science Fiction Colony Builder

Replicants were programmed with instincts. Drink when dehydrated. Eat when starving. Stand in the sun in perfect formation for hours to receive a dignitary. The Avericci landed first. It was a flying-wing model, a swept triangle with four propellers, only two of which were operational. Bullets gave it pimples all over and one of the rotors was leaking black smoke and dribbling oil. Still, it drifted down like a leaf and to everyone's relief the Avericci did not snap in half when it touched down. It was too large, as wide as the factory. The pilots disembarked, three sky-tanned airmen coughing in the constant dust and wide eyed at the sudden pimple of life and industry in the desert.

The captain and her aides did their best not to look too impressed. Fair's fair. "I am Captain of Freight Farah Amin, quartered out of Kozlovkagrad," she announced to the Kapitan, extending a hand. "This is Yuriy Volkov and Lu Xun, my co-pilots."

"I am the Kapitan," the Kapitan said, shaking her hand.

Two jets screamed over their airspace, white contrails slashing across the sky. It was a clear threat. Look at you. You don't have anything to defend yourself with. And you took my prey. The jets banked around and landed, a single lethal arrowhead in almost mint condition and a smaller, more insectoid plane. The pilots climbed out, thin and worn. "Captain Pushkin and my lieutenants," the captain said, helmet discarded. He gave a perfunctory salute. "So?"

They walked together to the semi-enclosed pavilion, where a subpar tea service was set up on a circular table cut out of sheet metal. They made small chat, or attempted to. The weather was hot. Yes, we are capable. Thank you for the compliment. "Still," Captain Pushkin, who divulged that he was the son of the air force from the first colonies. Why was there an air force? Well, there were the Americans and the Egyptians on the same planet. You can never be too careful. "Why here, in the middle of the desert? You know you're in the cool season, right?"

"No," the Kapitan admitted.

Captain Pushkin shrugged. "Well, consider that fair warning. When the hot season comes you will die of heatstroke. You Replicants may be built differently, but I have had Replicants in my army, and there are always heat casualties in the skeleton crews."

"And what would you suggest?"

"That I would tell an ally," Captain Pushkin said, sipping tea made with whatever that looked vaguely green and leafy. There was some mint, some potato leaves, and other things that the Kapitan was vaguely aware of. In a show of diplomatic courtesy he did not look like he was drinking anything other than good black tea.

"Ah, you pirate. See, this is why you are eating rats in caves, while we are rebuilding civilization." Farah Amin was sweating like a pig. "In any case, Kapitan, is there anything from… Earth?"

It was almost religious, the way she said it. It did some math in it's head- Amin could not be older than forty on the outside, and Pushkin was younger, a weathered late twenties. They would have grown up on Megiddo, only knowing Dead Earth from the recollections of their grandparents, who in turn, would have had patchy holes in their memory thanks to the stasis fugue.

The Kapitan nodded. "You must understand that this is all very strange to me," it said. "I was not born on Earth, I was born in Jupiter's orbit, and then I only woke up in Megiddo this year."

Pushkin nodded. "My grandfather used to tell me stories about you." There was a curious glint in his eye. "They said you stole his job."

"Perhaps I did," it shrugged. First came the Replicants, and then human augmentation technology proliferated to match. "Well, there is nothing from Earth." It drained it's cup. "I looked through the log data. Earth was destroyed when the 0Z was finishing construction, and when it left the berths it recorded Earth's destruction. The AIs called the Pesedjet catalyzed a black hole and chased the ark until it passed the heliopause."

Silence. Captain Pushkin tipped all the boiling hot water in his cup into his gullet and poured himself another. Captain Amin looked shaken on a bone deep level. "Well, that's that, I guess," Pushkin said mild as anything. "Let's deal with this another time. Kapitan, as you can tell from the ambient radiation, we have had a war here in Megiddo. Would you like to know why? Greed and division. When the colonies landed they set about gobbling the earth up like pigs. We tried to make a unified state, but it fell through before we could push it."

"There's a we?"

The captain nodded. "The Amalgamated Army. The air force of the Americans. Defectors from the Egyptians. And us!"

Captain Amin snorted. "He's exaggerating. It was a military coup, plain and simple. That's why there was a war. The Amalgates broke the armed forces, and the states only had their nuclear deterrent, so they used it."

"That we did! If only we stormed the silos first!"

The Kapitan raised a hand. It felt like an argument coming on. "We can talk about history later," it said in a level voice. "But let me be frank- what do you want us to do?"

"Pledge your allegiance to the Army," Captain Pushkin announced. "We will defend your settlement. You can service our machines and engines, and we'll give you all of this desert. We are not so stupid to ignore logistics. We will raise you to glory with us."

"Sign up with Kozkolvagrad," Captain Amin urged. "We need people like you. Kozkolvagrad has factories to build and land to develop. You can earn a lordship, money, respect. Why scrabble in the dirt, here? "

"Do you hear that word?" Captain Pushkin smiled. "Lordship. The moment central authority died is the moment they went back to reactionary feudalism. They even own slaves."

"First of all they're not slaves, they're just in debt-"

"They're not slaves," the pilot repeats in a mocking tone-

"Shut up, you raider. Your army are rabid dogs who only know of killing and looting. How much do your army generals earn, compared to poor old Captain Pushkin, who must fly ten thousand miles every year like a carrion bird?"

"And yet you still hire us in your wars."

"Yes. And you accept pay, so don't posture at me from some imaginary moral high ground."

The Kapitan watched all of this and memorized every exchange. How Pushkin flinched and grew puce with anger when Amin called them thieves, how Amin slid around the slavery issue. When the argument had run out of steam, it said, "well, thank you. I'll keep what you said in mind. Are you planning on staying?"

Farah Amin nodded. "If you help me fix the engine. I just need it to stop leaking oil. You can have a cut of the cargo."

They should have enough to fix one measly engine. "I'll stay for a week. I want to see that Old Earth industry in work," Captain Pushkain said, leaning back, a sardonic smile on his lips. The Kapitan was too polite to snort. It made a note to have a guy on him, in case he and his crew wandered somewhere they shouldn't have gone.

SELECT TWO OPTIONS FROM EACH CATEGORY

Diplomacy

[]- Send an envoy to the Amalgamated Army

"Let's be noncommittal. The Amalgates might talk like they're the kings of the desert, but we cannot be sure at this early stage. They can say whatever they want but words lie. Let's send a party over to them and see what they're like."

"What if they take it as an insult? I mean, they might say we're sending spies, and we're only young. Skillsoft memories aren't experience. We could be lied to, hoodwinked, in a strange environment."

"Oh, here's a cynic. We should send you! Anyway, that's a risk we have to take. If they're not rampant psychotics, all we will get are stupid vacant smiles and empty words."

[]- Invite representatives from the Amalgates

"The fact is that we can be more important to the Amalgates than we can be to Kozkolvagrad. I believe the implication is that to the Amalgates, we are the sole entity that can supply them their replacement parts and repair their Sukhois, while Kozkolvagrad? We're just another factory."

"I don't like the thought of being under their absolute control, though. There's a military disparity that they probably want to keep, and I think they know that if they don't like our offers they can always threaten us to get a better one."

"And so? They are very near us, and Kozkolvagrad is very far away from us. What other choice do we have?"

[]- Send a fact finding mission to Kozkolvagrad

"Kozkolvagrad might seem like just the thing. But let's do the smart thing and check first. There's a lot of accusations thrown at them, and I don't want to discover that we've been working on the wrong assumptions."

"Just getting to Kozkolvagrad would be a journey. We'd have to sacrifice, say, a hundred liters or so of water and about a tenth that in fuel. No, we should…"

[]- Contact Kozkolvagrad's companies for a semi-permenant trade

"...Make them come to us. They have things to sell. We have things to buy. See?"

"You're presuming a lot of things. That they'll believe that there's an emerging market just in the middle of the desert. That it'll be cost worthy."

"We were not particularly stealthy on the entry. Anyone with an optical telescope could see. Anyway, we can use the threat of going to the Amalgates to force a trade, if it comes to that."

[]- Do Nothing. (May be chosen twice)

General

[]- Air Defense Network

"Well, now we definitely know there are pirates, so uh. Let's defend against rowdy neighbors? Some missiles will go a long way to ensuring security."

"You can't believe a miniscule SAM battery will help us."

"I think having nothing will fuck us more."

[]- Material Surveying

"We are sorely lacking in metals, and chemicals besides. How are we to build shit without iron and aluminum? Phosphates and ammonia? We don't have any of those, and we need to find them fast. Send out the platoon, make them drive hard and far. Just find something, our stores are concerningly empty."

"No argument here."

[]- Oasis Entrepot

"Here's a thought. Instead of going around and knocking on doors like salesmen, why don't we make them come to us? We can make that temporary landing strip permanent. After all, we did get the hydroponics up and running."

"A grand idea! Only, you're in the arse end of the arse end of nowhere. I may or may not have some ideas on where to construct such a thing, depending on the compensation."

"Pushkin? What are you doing here?"

"I was wondering where everyone had gone. Dreadful boring without you all."

[]- Formal Trade Caravan

"Okay, so here's another plan. We load up the technical fleet with potatoes and fruit. We go around hawking this stuff and bring what we need back. Pushkin, you're here so you might as well give us your thoughts."

"In the desert, the traders eat algae and whatever they can grow in their trucks. Your stuff would be a hot commodity. But what you're looking for will be on direct routes between the eastern and western coasts. You'd have to hope that whichever caravan you trip over is a bribable sort, or they don't have any prior commitments with their cargo."

Capacities:

• Manpower: 2/5
• Academic: 8/10
• Industrial: 1/3
• Power: 4/5

Resources:

• Metallics: 1
• Chemicals: 0
• Nuclears: 3
• Biologicals: 3

Chemical Shortage

"It feels like I'm. Hard to describe. It's like this sandcrab thing on the back of my throat. Maybe it's got an oviposter into my spine. And it's thirsty too, whatever it is. All I can think about is water."

Kapitan, the shortage of water is doing a number on us. The crops and biologicals are fine, but the problem now is that we are unable to ensure water quality. The water we pump up is full of xenobacteria, and our internal microbiomes are unable to handle it. Now, the plants are hardy enough to tough that out, and I know for a fact that Pushkin either is acclimated to the Megiddo microfauna or he's just a really good actor. After some consultation with archives, I've come up with three possible solutions.

[]- Water Boiling: We could simply enact boiling policies. We have ample sunlight and during noon, temperatures exceed thirty three degrees. That should make most of the water potable, and the filters should take care of the dirt and sand. Of course, I have used the world 'most.' There is a small chance that whatever's causing the stomach illness is heat resistant. Wouldn't that be a laugh? (-1 Power)
[]- Succulent Crops: The hydrophonic crops process a lot of the microorganisms. They're safe to eat, and if we convert some of the infrastructure to grow high water content fruits, we could be able to stave off the worst of it. What we have projected is that there will be low level dehydration and stomach illnesses, and we will have to reduce caloric intake, which would lead to a small degradation in total working capacity. (Requires activation of 0Z Hydroponics Farm.)
[]- Microbiome Injection: Pushkin's microbiome is one hundred percent Megiddo. I've checked with him, he was born here and just to prove it he drank a liter of groundwater. Looked fine for a day after. We could take a gut bacteria sample, cultivate it, and use that as a starter culture for us. This is, of course, a risky venture. We are jabbing a foriegn agent into our systems. If we succeed, we will likely never have to deal with this stuff again. (-2 Academics)

(-2 Manpower until this problem is solved)

Here is my report. I await the consensus' decision.

Amalgate Ambassador

Katya believes that it is in a den of wolves. It is currently regretting her luck of the draw. Pushkin's ELINT plane flew her to the Amalgate base, nestled in a mountain plateau. Standing on the edge of it you could see the clouds form in the north and the dust blowing across the sands like it was an ocean. It would be a nice place, if it was not aware that they are looking at it like a cut of meat. They invite her for tea, they have a praporshchik to introduce her to the base, with its apartments and cafeteria cut into the rocks. They are polite, or at least, Katya thinks they are polite because it doesn't have any other frame of reference.

But underneath all that is the ever present threat of force. Katya counted eight fifth gen fighter-bombers. Twice that in propeller planes and strip-down models. Three times that in bomber-recon drones. When the captains and generals invite it over for tea they do so in a carved solarium overlooking the planeyard.

"You're pretty smart for a bunch of genejacks," Lieutenant General Sayid, who has control over the Red Mesa base remarks to her over a midday tea. He's young, fresh faced. Too young to be a general, but his uncle was a quartermaster and Sayid had some talent to be promoted this early. He kept a mimic-lizard, a half scaled, half feathery thing that squawked nonsense words at Katya perched on his shoulder.

Tasteless military ration cookies accompanied the tea, and some green jam made from local cactus berries are doing their best to add some taste to it. It was a good attempt, but too tart. "Now listen- I don't blame you for sending a guy to the coast. You're hedging your bets, is all. But we are nearer to you than them."

I can kill you faster than they can save you.

"I understand," Katya says, hiding its expression behind the cup. Bitter. "What would you want to… smoothen our friendship?"

He waves a finger. "Too brash. Too forward. You are not very good at this, and I hope you will learn."

Select One
[]- Security Guarantor: Having discussed the entrepot, the Amalgates wishes to station a semi-permanent military outpost in order to provide security against other pirates in return for favourable basing rights and first pick of the markets. Underlying that is the fact that the Amalgates would run the port. After all, they have guns. And truth to be told, Katya hasn't even seen a pirate operation yet. On the other hand, would it be wise to risk this?
[]- The Boneyard: Many of the Amalgate planes are moving past their service life. A mixture of harsh service requirements, lack of knowledge on how to repair them, and other assorted factors means that there's lots of old frames eating up hangar space. Lt. Gen. Sayid suggests that if the 0Zs would take some of them off his hands, maybe repair some of them, sell them back, they would remember this fondly. There's no security guarantee. Whoever would want the boneyard jets could take them.
[]- Caretaker Base: There is a string of Amalgate military outposts by a set of rocky gulches, near disputed territory. Leaving them alone would be a waste of perfectly good bases with air strips, refueling facilities, and leftover arms production facilities as well as the possibility of minerals in the ground. If the 0Zs take over them, they would have a shelter zone for the hot season, but may have to contend with the faceless disputers.
[]- Nothing: None of the proposed offers have found much purchase within either Katya or Lt. Gen. Sayid.

Kozkolvagrad Commission

Dasha wants to die. Katya got to sit in a plane for eight hours. Dasha set off on a borrowed Hummer, took as much water and food as the Kapitan could spare, and drove east. It slept under the car in the hot midday heat, it drove in the almost sub-zero nighttime temperatures and the slightly more tolerable dusk and dawn periods. After two weeks of sweating out its body mass a sandstorm hit its car and it spent three days listening to the howling wind and the sand beating against the windows.

After that, it finally reached Kozkolvagrad. Only thing is, Dasha's just some raggedy ass motherfucker from the desert. Just one of ten thousand. So what if it was a five years fresh Replicant clone? There's lots of them hanging around Kozkolvagrad. They wear metal collars with service numbers.

It was a shame, Dasha thought. Kozkolvagrad is a beautiful city. They had skyscrapers. Not really big ones, but the sunset still looked super pretty glittering off the glass facades. Oh, well. It cranked the seat on the car flat and dug the voice recorder out of the glovebox. "Right. Well, this is Dasha, and I'm in Kozkolvagrad. There's a sea breeze blowing in over me, and I wish you could be here. Currently I've parked the hummer in a lot with a bunch of other desert truckers.

"I haven't got any luck meeting anyone important. I'll try again tomorrow, but I think more important is what Kozkolvagrad is. I can confirm that they have reached the stage of development where they can have massive amounts of poverty. To the best of my knowledge, Kozkolvagrad is just a node in the eastern seaboard civilization matrix. They stretch up and down the coast. Suburbs, mines, ports, that thing. What I hear is, Kozkolvagrad is second fiddle to another city called Sankt Prospekt, up north, and it's top fiddle compared to Prestergard. ANd no one's happy about this state of affairs.

"Strange thing is, I don't think they have oceanic cargo ships. They use the giant gliders. There's kilometer long electro-magnetic ramps in the hinterland, but the only ones who own the boats are fishermen, family or megahaulers.

"I'm cooped up here, hungry as fuck, because I don't have their currency. I'm eating from the ration packs, but I'm trying to prolong them as much as possible."

Dasha breathed out and licked its lips. "Okay. Tomorrow, I'm going to focus on-"

[]- "The desert truckers." Aren't the 0Z most like them, in a sense? People from the deserts, in oasis cities, looking for something, anything. They'd better get used to it.
[]- "The Replicants." They're the same, aren't they? If anyone would know Kozkolvagrad, it'd be the human machines keeping the state running.

Proactive Self Defense

Well, Kapitan, we've managed to construct a shoddy system. This stuff is worse than the monkey models the Federation ships off to the Sahel. It wasn't any trouble, but I cannot help but feel that you've wasted some salvage and a team. I suppose it's better to have something rather than nothing.

Gain:
0Z SAM Network
Purpose: Air Defense(++), Reconnaissance (+)
Condition: Working (WILL DEGRADE AFTER EVERY USE)
Hastily repurposed and cannibalized from the Dandelion Ark. Massively degraded from normal standards, but a collection of SAM trucks patrolling the area is better than nothing.


Down to the River

Dust follows the caravan as it stops to where Pushkin had indicated. It wasn't official, the pilot explained. He just knew of where a bunch of people lived pretty close to you, wouldn't you like to give them a look? That port idea of yours would take off there, promise.

It was a dry river gulch, flowing out of a patch of badlands, some eighty odd kilometers away from the landing zone. It will run with dirty water in the hot season, because the warm winds will blow and melt the ice from some glacier hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away. People built adobes of river mud and quarried rocks, sometimes patched with plastic or corrugated steel. "This used to be a proper city," Pushkin explained as ten Replicants stepped out of the cars. He stared over the gulch, the sun shining off of white paint. "You know. Before. Half underground, and when the nukes fell…"

He didn't say any more. The Kapitan runs a few projections. The current place looked like it could support five hundred at the most optimistic. The number of people dead before they reached equilibrium… It was a lot.

From the cliff overlooking the pueblo- the word floated in its mind, it just feels right on some level- the Kapitan could see the vital organs of this community. A crop of buildings that Pushkin says are moss and algae farms, some aquaculture when there's water to spare. The habitations, cut into the rock and therefore cooler than the sod houses on the outer edge of the village. Dew catchers on the ridge. A church, the centerpiece. "What's the denomination?" someone asks.

Pushkin only looks sour. "Eastern Orthodox," he settles after a moment of thought. "Come down there, I'll introduce you all."

There were five in total. They shook hands with the Replicants, squinting at their pale white (but rapidly tanning) skin. The head priest, Piotr. A fisherman slash head mechanist, Alexy. Two trucker caravan captains, who were brother and sister and could not stand each other- Dasha and Sasha. And finally, a swaying drunk by the name of Vladimir Ivanov, who occasionally ran the desalination plants with a pack of orphans.

"You're the Kapitan?" asks the priest, Piotr. The Kapitan politely ignores the necklace of human skulls around his neck, each polished and waxed to a mirror sign and what the Kapitan believes is the New Testament in Greek etched on them. "Good to meet you fellows. You know, my grandmother said she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you skinjobs stealing her job."

"Well," the Kapitan says, shaking his hand, "your job's safe. I haven't the slightest clue about the ministry."

Piotr laughs. The old priest is thin, more beard and frightening garb than flesh and bone, but jolly as… something red and round. "I heard about your plan," Piotr says. "It'll be good to see some fresh blood here. Whew! You know, I ministered for the Army, and they're alright." As alright as anyone can be, says his sad smile. "Come along, let's talk. Pushkin! You don't need to follow, cool your heels. He's waiting for you, you know?"

Pushkin disappears with a bashful look on his face. Immediately after looking around, the old priest grabs the Kapitan's arm. "For God's sake," he hisses. "What are you thinking?" The cheer falls away from his demeanour. It's desperation, harried deer, starving dog desperation.

"What?"

"Those bastards. You can't possibly be thinking of going along with them."

The Kapitan blinks. "You should explain. Please."

"They're lions, my boy. The devil in a beast skin, prowling around, looking to devour. This place? We were their whore-house for years, until the water dried up and they stomped some poor souls that-a-way into fucking wormfood." The Kapitan remains impassive. "I can't blame you for… fixing their engines, building their radios. God knows that survival is first. But I will not allow you to bring them back here again. I won't live through it. I'd rather die."

"That's all very well and good, and I will accommodate your feelings on this matter. I-" and then the old priest Piotr faints. Acute attack of narcolepsy, Darva diagnosed as they set the priest up in the shade. Give it an hour. What did he mean by that? The whole affair with the Army?

The Kapitan shrugged. "Now that we're on it," Darva said, shredding a thin yellowed stalk of grass between its fingers, "I've been feeling off since we came here. Specifically here, from fifty klicks away. But Pushkin feels fine, although obviously this guy doesn't."

"Maybe it could be an allergy," tall, silent Yuri offers.

Darva grunts. "No. But then again, we are on an alien planet… Kapitan, where are you going?"

It is going to talk to the others, get a better idea of where things stood. Roaming through the wynds. Eyes staring at it through window slits set deep into sun-baked walls. The sad thing is, it thought, is that this place was a really good place. Some couple ten kilometers away from where the 0Z landed, and roughly midway from the northern mountain ranges where the Amalgates had set themselves up and the seaboard. It would have been nice if they could have gotten here without all the fuss, possible and future.

It didn't have any better luck with the other ersatz leaders. The teamsters (why-ever it used that word, it doesn't know) Dasha and Sasha told the Kapitan to ask Sankt Prospekt, near Kozkolvagrad for the money. Alexy shrugged and said if you ever build it, let me see if I can dig up some lights down there and tapped the rushes on his floor. Vladimir Ivanov was the worst and the best.

"And so I wanted to know your opinion on this matter," the Kapitan finishes, laying out everything. If they should do it. If this dried out, beaten up place could live with it. If they could stomach the engines roaring through their ears.

"Whofukingcareswhutever."

"I'm serious. I don't want to step on toes."

Vladimir Ivanov drains a calabash gourd of the sharp smelling liquor within. It's empty. It falls on the floor with a clatter, in Vladimir Ivanov's cutaway apartment underground, cut from a service tunnel to the underground bunker complex. "Who. Fucking cares. Whatever," the engineer repeats, more slowly.

"That's a great help."

Dust shakes from the roof. It should leave, although it's a nice and cool twenty seven celsius down here. "Fine," the drunk says, "if I tell you what I think. You leave?"

"Please."

Vladimir Ivanov sits up straight from his carved rock bed. "I think," he picks his words slowly, carefully, "that I truly do not care. Whatever I say. You ignore it or follow it. If the profit is good for you. And the profit will be good. Certainly."

"Aren't you afraid that the Amalgates will trouble you?"

"No. Can't be worse. Than living." He tilts his head. "In general. And here. At least they. Will bring booze."

"How old are you?"

"Oh, this. Wasn't around. For the Amalgate thing. Don't have sour grapes case. Not a lot of people. That do. Now. Only the olds. And not a lot of olds. Where do you think Piotr. Gets skulls?" An ugly chuckle. "We're fucked. Everyone could leave. Left. To the sea. To the north. Or to the desert. Where they eat mushrooms and kill anyone who drives through. Their turf. Hahaha. Even being some. Jackboot's buttboy. Would be a life."

The Kapitan nods. "You've been a great help," it chews and spits out the words.

"Byebyeshutthedoorwhenyouleave."

Approach Vote
[]- And Who Would Stop Us?: Just build it anyway. The Amalgated Army would gladly help you, and once it's done no one can argue with that. If someone bothers the construction just hit them until they get the point.
[]- The Basic Appeal: Following Vladimir Ivanov's ramblings, the mission will instead go directly to the people, holding outdoor seminaries and Q&A sessions to impress the benefits of the entreports on the local population.
[]- And It's For You: The 0Z Colony has decided that the local inhabitants will have a wide latitude of ability of enforcement of their local laws and ordinances, and will comply with any decisions they will make in the running of the entrepot.
[]- Another Place: Owing to multiple factors the 0Z Colony has decided to look for other areas of habitation. (Commit Exploratory Battalion, finishes on Turn 3).

Deploy Augmented Diplomats?
[]- Yes: Retune empathy and social interaction protocols, brush up on human psychology, in order for whatever goals you decided to be more successful. (Requires activation of 0Z Skillsoft Facility.)
[]- No: Resources ought to be preserved.

Capacities:

• Manpower: 3/5
• Academic: 10/10
• Industrial: 3/3
• Power: 6/6

Resources:

• Metallics: 1
• Chemicals: 0
• Nuclears: 3
• Biologicals: 3

A/N: Why yes, indeed, I do keep a prompt and steady schedule.