[X] Concentrate your efforts on the Nereidi political factions
Then, there's a slow down, as Selko and Mirabelle, the ECHO CHAMBER reps, and the River ambassador all do a bit of a dance arranging meetings with the Nereidi and one another. The two Nereidi speakers watch all this with narrow eyed curiosity, soaking in the byplay. You wonder what exactly politeness and the ritualistic exchange of protocol and timing mean to these organ swapping, apparently colonial beings.
Finally, Selko and Mirabelle return, and you return inside the submarine. "We're having substantive discussions with Nereidi representatives in a couple of hours." Selko says. "I ceded the River the first slot, because it puts them in our debt, and the Biff are big on that. Their diplomacy is a lot like ancient human diplomacy. A game of putting yourself in a weaker position."
<<Are you two fully in cooperation?>>
Mirabelle smiles, a far more cynical expression than the curvy Chrysanthemum agent usually wears. <<No more betrayal from yours truly,>> she says. <<My mission here is just to stabilise things. We may not like your philosophy but you're still human.>>
Selko smiles back at her, equally cynical. <<And of course, you people prioritise the human.>> She looks at you. <<And we can rely on you for information gathering?>>
<<Yes. Though, I am concerned. Do you believe it's actually safe to start doing information gathering against the Nereidi? That can be quite hostile. Especially if we end up doing any kind of physical reconnaissance.>>
<<That's not something that we can get a feel for yet.>> Selko says. <<We might be in a bit of a trap here. We need to gain information on their internal politics to be safe finding out information on their internal politics.>>
The three of you pass back into the submarine. The others are waiting in the lounge, in apparent silence. Nobody talking out loud but only through secure links. It's a little tight and oppressive and you suddenly, vividly recall just how far you are below the ocean.
The interior of the sub is mostly unchanged, though space is starting to expand as various cargo is automatically unloaded out onto the dock. Soon you'll need to start to sort through it and get it stowed away, but for now you can enjoy the expansion of the lounge as the cargo pods open up and the smart matter remolds itself into a larger space.
Someone, maybe Luyu, has set the false windows to show a different outlook, and they now display the view from a distant mountain over massive cloud forests. It would fit her sense of humour to construct a view of almost the opposite end of the planet to you.
Only Luyu and Mirareki are in the lounge, neither really having much to do here. You wonder if you shouldn't be calling on Luyu more diplomatically but she seems much more on the warrior side of conflict specialisation and hasn't expressed much interest. Mirareki, you think, is mostly just putting together a story.
Reizay isn't in the room, probably she's still in the sub's control cubby, but she's obviously listening in on the channel because she speaks up. <<They're broadcasting a lot of unencrypted signal. They use light a lot, but our remote sensors are picking it up between the main city and the external structures. There's also a lot of radio as well, on frequencies from about 3-300 hertz. I think the latter is being used to talk to more distant outposts. There's some complex voodoo going on with the compression and pulsing though, which might also be a form of coding, but it's broad rather than narrow or point cast. I also think they have various types of hard line but I haven't tapped them yet.>>
<<What can you tell us from the public broadcasts?>> You walk over to one of the sofas and stretch out on it, feeling no need to see Reizay in the flesh while you talk to her.
<<The light broadcasts are mostly data link, optical transmission of data. I think a lot of it is equipment, or at least, whatever biologicals they're using for equipment talking to one another. Status updates and stuff for their city infrastructure. There's also what might be personal communications feed, but I haven't penetrated those yet, it would require me to at least figure out their protocols and stuff. I think they're effectively public networks, but I don't want to accidentally break into something private.>>
Reizay seems almost comically concerned about causing an incident.
<<What about the radio?>>
<<That seems to be being used on broadcast for long range comms. I think basically updating distant outposts.>>
Mirabelle glances at Selko again before speaking. <<Unless there's quantum encryption on the channels, you can download the local stuff without anyone knowing, right? I think it's okay to at least view what is to the Nereidi public information.>>
<<I concur. Though I confess I don't know much about communications. If they can't catch us doing it, we should be alright to do it.>>
<<Alright.>> Reizay says. <<I'll tap into their public comms.>>
<<Good. You can work with my students and the Shalathri for the translation. I need to get ready for this first meeting.>>
<<I'll help too!>> Liya puts in. She and Reizay are sitting close to one another, leant together over a projected screen you can't read from the far side. You suspect an alliance.
<<Do you want me to attend with you?>> You ask. Selko looks at you and you see in an unguarded instant that she doesn't, actually, trust you at all.
<<No. Perhaps you could try to get a tour of the city or something though. See what you can learn.>>
<<Of course.>> You hide your slight annoyance at her cutting you out of the loop this way. It's just the price you pay for having got her here. When it comes down to it you have to trust that she'll do the negotiations successfully.
It might be easier to talk to the Nereidi alone about the Diplomat anyway. They don't seem to want to keep it a secret at least, which surprises you a little. But they may well think it's the biggest threat to them out there. Probably, what they want most is information from you. For now, you put a request for a tour of the city with the Nereidi and sit back. <<Reizay, I have a question.>>
<<Yes?>> She glances over.
<<How secure are our comms? It seems like the Nereidi– the Ones-of-the-Depths, have an informational base at least as good as ours. What's the likelihood they can listen in our tac-com?>>
<<If they still have post-alien gear?>> Reizay considers. <<Well, our links are quantum encrypted. So we should know if someone cracks us. That's a mostly limit of physics. That said, we can't be entirely sure they don't have something we don't know about. I wouldn't be totally sure of our communications security outside the envelope of the submarine.>>
<<Alright, thanks.>>
You sit back. Alex's hands fall around your neck.
"Hi." You don't physically raise your hand to hers because it would look weird. "Were you watching?"
"Yeah." She snuggles up beside you. "It's about as bad as I feared. We posthumans have found evidence of multiple prior comparably capable civilisations. That goes back to the Exile really. Sometimes they just mysteriously vanish, sometimes there's evidence of war. The speculation that there was some kind of killer superintelligence out there was difficult for many to accept. More optimistic explanations like like ascension to a higher plane or retreat into contemplation remained in wide currency."
"So– are we doomed to go the same way?"
The loss of the posthumans would be devastating for human civilization. If the higher powers even left any of you alive.
"Maybe. But maybe not." Her hand strokes down your back. "It's not clear what triggers them. They destroyed the observatory when we detected them, but no more than that. As the Nereidi had it their interactions were more aggressive. We don't actually know they're responsible for the vanishings we haven't accounted for, or if they're even the same group beyond superficial technological similarities. Maybe it's some system being operated by different actors over time. For now worry more about this Dandelion and their Diplomat. It might be humanity that finishes us off, not the higher powers."
You blink and find Liya standing over you, leaning in. <<Stop making out with the AI in your head. We've got something.>>
You follow her down the submarine to the control cabin where Reizay is hanging out. The small room is packed, with Selko's students and the Shalatri all present, and you wince at the crowding that you and Liya makes.
<<I've managed to extract and analyse Nereidi public communications,>> Reizay says. <<We believe that what we're accessing is some kind of public encyclopaedia, it's easy to access, but it wasn't made public to us in the first contact package the Nereid sent to us. That's mostly physical information.>>
<<What was in that package?>>
<<They sent us it when we got to the city,>> says Celebrian. She sounds a little surly. You wonder if she really wanted to share it, but there would have been no hiding it from your team or the Chrysanthemum operatives. <<It's not anything too ground breaking though. Just the basics of their biology and some stuff on their language, which we mostly already had thanks to the widget and the River girls. A lot of it seems to be hastily edited. Probably it originally contained stuff about their civilization but that's gone now.>>
Liya and Reizay are both looking impatient. <<So we have this encyclopedia.>>
<<So what can you find out about their political factions? We've met at least two that seem to have distinct aesthetics and identities. Are they actually factions in that way or something else?>>
<<It appears political factions is the most accurate way to describe them.>> Liya says.
<<There's four major locally stable structures in Nereidi opinion-organisation on this topic. That's how the Nereidi count them and it checks out to a first pass unsupervised cluster analysis. The ones we've been talking to are from two groups, for whom our best translation of the Nereidi terms are 'Adaptationist' and 'Preservationist'.
Adaptationist opinion holds that the first task of Nereidi society after reawakening is to adapt to the changed conditions it finds itself in. From what I'm getting they may have been based on groups who weren't necessarily most advantaged by the pre-war situation. They want a clean slate now, and maybe the deployment of certain new ideologies… I don't really fully understand the details though.
Preservationist opinion takes a different tack - basically, they want to restore pre-hibernation institutions first, within whatever protective interface layer is necessary, and go from there. They're more conservative I suppose. They talk a lot about the proper adoption of rituals… or possibly curtseys. It's not really sure if there's much difference to them. There's a pair of popular - call them either metaphors or analogies - which identify Preservationism with a composed Nereidi individual and Adaptationism with a limb or organ that finds expression by composition with external parts. Which has the positive valence is contested.
The crests you've been seeing are basically badges of allegiance. If some dividual wants to bind and identify itself with some group they use a coloured crest. I think different conventions have existed in the past.>>
<<So, the red crests we saw in that River occupied temple were also a political faction?>>
<<The Reds are the Revanchists. They basically wanted to burst out the gate and revive the old order - the existence of humans and posthumans proved the coast is clear.>>
<<They're allied with the Preservationists?>>
<<Actually no. The Preservationists are more isolationist - and tend to be postie-sceptical. The Revanchists are an independent faction with interactions with both, but had a lot of crossover with the Adaptationists because 'ally with the River' was their adaptation, from that perspective. But they're a smaller faction and have suffered badly from the River base being destroyed. It's lost them a lot of both power and 'credibility'.>>
<<The Purples are the preservationist ones. The blues are the Adaptationists. There's this other design of colourless crest that seem like they're… staff… of the emergency facilities this all came out of. I'm not sure how much the crests as a convention predate the reawakening, or who came first. Anyway, I think they're supposed to be apolitical. Though whether that works as badly as in a human polity I don't know.>> Reizay gets a worried look as she says that, and then beams. <<The Blues seem to be the larger faction, but the Purples I think have more old pre-freeze authority. It's a real standoff.>>
<<Sounds like the Preservationists are going to be a problem>> says Liya.
<<You think? I think we can work with them,>> says Celebrian. <<I wouldn't want to wake up and be told how we do things has to change because it's you know, 'behind the times'. Besides, they're mostly aquatic. Feels pretty natural to draw a line and let them do their thing on their side and us do our thing on ours. And,>> she says with a little point tipping her emphasis, <<we'll have a mutual interest against off-world interlopers.>>
<<Oh please.
You are off-world interlopers, to them.>>
You're not sure how you feel about this argument, but ultimately it's not really your decision. It's the negotiators. You just have to worry about the diplomat. So far, there's been no message about your request to tour the city, other than to say it's being prepared. You need to decide what to do in the meantime. You could simply wait and see about off loading cargo. You could perhaps contact one of the Nereidi factions directly. Alternatively, you could perhaps contact ECHO CHAMBER and see if you can learn a bit more about the mysterious mockmaids, and maybe even see if there's a way to do a little negotiation with them directly, perhaps even to separate them from your conspiratorial adversary - the ones called 'Dandelion'.
[ ] Just wait for your tour and don't get involved in the politics
[ ] Contact the purple crests
[ ] Contact the blue crests
[ ] Try to get a meeting with ECHO CHAMBER
