Q4Y24
It's funny how, sometimes, events converge despite being entirely disparate from one another.
I was standing in the virtual meeting space construct with The Doctor, as she was displaying the result of six months of study and progress with the Damarian dragons. I was ... less than enthused with what I was looking at. "Would you care to explain to me, Doctor, exactly why 'putting big black spikes and tentacles on them' was your idea of progress, here?"
The Doctor hemmed slightly, before waving her hand to show the relevant dataslides. "It... does evoke bad iconoggraphics memetically speaking, doesn't it? Yes. These little ... creatures ... gave us quite a bit of consternation, Maker, I am not ashamed to say. The difficulties in breeding new stock was only exceeded by the outright impossibility of directly cloning them. The various cloning methodologies at our disposal have consistently failed to create viable organisms. Without access to that, we were required to revert to vat-grown subjects and forced maturation methods. This had some amount of success, of course, but the subjects we created were even smaller than the original stock."
She raised her glasses up higher on her nose ridge. In a virtual construct. Her eyes didn't even need... bah. I did, however, cross my arms and pointedly refuse to sigh. "I'm not seeing, Doctor, how that gets us to edgelord-skin dragons. Please, connect those dots for me."
She smiled wanly. "Indeed. The key to our discovery of this 'improvement', your holy majesty, came from an almost entirely accidental source; none of our known methods were working to improve the creatures' development, so we sent them to the Seekers' chantries in the deadworlds to determine if Dho-Na rituals could be used to at least give us a path to further development. The oddity came from the inversion of the expected outcome; we did indeed find an improvement in development maturation outcomes of the vat-grown dragons. But only in the control groups."
I blinked, and examined the specific bit of data more closely. "That ... despite every ritual tried? Wait. The maturation... ahh. Now I see why the spikes."
The Doctor nodded in affirmation. "The twinned data-points of the 'eldritch' rites failing to promote positive outcomes, and the variance in the control-groups' outcomes based on their proximity to the local hyperplanar taps that provided the power for the facilities. Yes. We did not have a solid model to explain that phenomenon until we started observing the thaumic magnitude variances of the matured dragons. It seems that dragons grown closer to hyperplanar taps have stronger thaumic signatures. Heartstones utilized for 'magic' purposes also regenerate more quickly on a function correlated to proximity to hyperplanar taps ... but have no measurable impact on the operation of the taps themselves. Nor have we measured any thaumic fluctuations on any of the planar realms our taps connect to."
I furrowed my brow in confusion. "Well that's frustrating. What are your current conjectures on the matter?"
A new panel of data displays flickered into being with yet another wave of her hand. "As with all sorcerous phenomena, precise quantification is ... challenging. And with the data indicating that the presence of eldritch phenomena actually impedes the formation of the non-eldritch magical energies, we have had to re-think many of our methods. The progress we have managed to make has come from the little we have been able to make has been due to the Computation Orbs you acquired the schematics for immediately before the Incident. While the operational mathematics involved are very different from Dho-Na Curvature mathematics, and we lack the means to fully power Orb devices, we have been able to make some basic progress in better-tuned sensor equipment for our purposes."
I stared at her. "Get to the point, Doc."
She cleared her throat. "Yes. Well. We managed to observe thaumic flows of non-eldritch energies. What we saw has been rigorously corroborated, and we developed additional testing regimens as seen in these datagrams to confirm it. The non-eldritch thaumic energies of the heartstones, and the dragons by extension, form more readily when the boundaries between planes are weaker, and the boundaries between dimensions are stronger. If the eldritch energies are thus extra-dimensional; the 'arcane' energies are extra-planar."
I reviewed the displayed datagrams -- they tested this by having a batch of maturation vats containing immature dragons passed through numerous gateways between known planes over and over again, in different configurations of each. As well as being closer and further from hyperplanar taps. And sure enough; the development was more effective for them when this was done. "Extraplanar ... as in native to a dimension, but not native to any defined space within that dimension. Lovely... yet another angle of concern to deal with things beyond our ability to fully grasp them that might intrude upon our existence. Joy upon joy."
The Doctor noded sternly. "If nothing else, Great Maker, the extradimensional warding mechanisms you have historically insisted upon would still be effective protections against such. And as we have seen with the implantation of minute-scale hyperplanar taps in maturing dragons, we can use this method to increase their body volume by roughly a factor of five ... while simultaneously increasing their thaumic output from 0.3 microthaums to 50 microthaums."
That was ... almost two hundred times more potent, per dragon. Still not that much, considering the tithing of the Seekers started at a minimum of one millithaum per seeker, each month. Still -- it was progress. I looked over the next segment of data being presented. "Wait. Everything you've demonstrated thus far was that the arcane energies are incompatible on many levels with the eldritch. What from this is indicative of being compatible with the process of the Seekers' tithings to make it worth trying to combine the two?"
The Doctor shook her head mildly. "It is more the formation -- or more accurately the manifestation -- of one form that is impeded by the presence of the other. Once already present they do not seem to have a deleterious effect outside of warding and banishment regimens. With the dragons already needing to be vat-grown at Seeker monastaries and chantries in order to grow to full size anyhow, it seems only natural that if we could integrate them with the current tithing processes that it would be ideal to do so. And as you might recall, the only portion of the process that's truly eldritch in nature is the soul-bonding. Transferrence of arcane energies via eldritch soul-bond might not be the most efficient process, but as the core of the tithing process is in fact the Philosopher's Stone material, it should be possible to imbue draconic heartstone energies into the Stone material and allow transferrence that way."
I tilted my head. "And that would give our necromancers the ability to operate as proper sorcerors instead. Myself included. I cannot complain about this concept."
Yes. This was progress. It still wasn't going to be enough to do what I'd hoped it could accomplish ... not without taking decades longer than I was comfortable taking, but it was still progress.
I found myself once again accompanied by Commander Shaleson. This time, my accompaniment included something that I should have seen coming but never really thought about; one Chaplain-Lieutenant Samuel Danvers. It had apparently been 'decided' by the General and the Shade leadership that despite my rather copious ability to protect myself, even though I was only transiting as an avatar rather than my original self. Even after all this time of living with being a head of state, even with that having been something I actively intended to occur, it still felt strange to have to have a permanent bodyguard retinue.
The question of what, exactly, they would be able to accomplish in my defense should the need arise was a deeper one that I didn't much like the potential answers to: I wasn't yet so far gone that the idea of someone willingly committing suicide-by-abomination in order to buy me the time necessary to flee had become something I could be comfortable with. And yet ... that was exactly what the Shaleson's team had signed up for. It was even why they'd brought on a rotation of chaplains -- that was, Shades who were also Bearers with at least four decades of experience in that role before signing on as Shades -- to further facilitate the team in that capacity.
Happily, today was a day that would involve little more than continuous boredom on the part of the Shades in my service. Though even then, I'd taken some small liberties in arranging for reducing the total boredom involved. For myself, obviously, but also for Shaleson and Danvers -- the idea of making them wait in line at Babylon station's customs ingress was just too petty to indulge. So instead I was using remote Synth bodies for the three of us, mostly operated via non-sapient Host controller until we got to see Officer Zack Allen's eminently unenthused mug.
He, of course, was staring into his scanner/reader without even bothering to look up -- you could tell it had been a slow day for him as well -- and held out his hand expectantly. "Identicard, please."
Shaleson, in her synthsleeve, held out the three cards for myself, for the good chaplain, and her own without saying a word.
Allen's eyes boggled ever so slightly as he looked at the first card's readout. And a little further again when he looked up from it and saw the three of us -- and more specifically me. "Holy Hannah … what the hell … I mean, hello, your Emperorness… err. I'm sorry, we weren't expecting you -- let me get the ambassadorial honorguar--"
Shaleson reached out to interrupt Allen before he could activate his commlink, pulling him slightly aside. "Mr. Allen. Can I call you Zack? Well, Zack, I want you to think very carefully about the fact that His Holiness isn't on any incoming schedule; and that we arrived on an Earthforce transport shuttle. I want you to think about how a head of state would feel about having his careful efforts at staying low-key on this visit ruined by some well-intentioned security guard's attempts to give that head of state a welcome committee he didn't want. Take all the time you need." She paused, almost as if hitching for breath. "Had enough? Good. Now, I want you to process the remaining IdentiCards and confirm whether or not we match them -- no special favors there, all above board -- and then I want you to forget you saw us. Can you do that for me?"
Allen just nodded, his face pinched with an awkwardness that was equalled only by the mild-mannered intensity that Shaleson's demeanor embodied. "Y.. yeah." He swiped the other two cards while barely even looking at the readouts, and started pulling at the collar of his neck.
I couldn't help it. "You know, Mr. Allen, I hear the Minbari have just utterly exceptional tailors in their Worker caste."
He adamantly looked away from me. Everybody's a critic.
It took barely twenty minutes of a semi-meandering wander about the receiving facilities of the station before we reached a set of quarters quietly rented out in advance of our arrival, whereupon I grabbed Shaleson and Danvers' actual bodies with just enough tightness as to draw them through the gap between spaces with me, swapping out the synth sleeves with our actual bodies -- or as close to it as I could come at this point for my own, anyhow. It took another forty minutes from there to get to our destination; the quarters of Ambassador Kosh.
We didn't even get to actually ring the door to request entry before Lyta Alexander, the only living human to actually witness a Vorlon world, opened the door. She hadn't bothered to hide the existence of her methane-breather gills. At least they were less painful than a Younger Race implant would have been. "He isn't receiving visitors."
I quirked an eyebrow. "What's that saying? It's too late for the pebbles to vote?"
She turned away and looked back at the encounter suit. I got the sense of their telepathic communication but waited for her to speak aloud for politenesses' sake. "By all means, then." She stepped away from the door with a sweeping gesture, obviously entirely uncomfortable with what was happening.
I let a faint smile cross over my lips as my entourage and I made our way into the Vorlon's quarters. That smile remained but turned slightly more sour as I looked towards Kosh, focusing my parapsionic presence in a manner that to a psychic being is quite similar to making eye contact with someone. "I don't make it a habit to repeat my offers, Naraniek. But for you, given the stakes, I'm willing."
The only other human -- if either of us actually still qualified -- in the room had a more confused expression at my words than anything. She obviously must not have been told.
Kosh's inner song was in a quiet sort of turmoil for a while. "The tacet is as much a portion of the song as the crescendo. The instrument must play its part if the orchestra is to create beauty in the dark."
I thought for a moment in response. It was Danvers, however, who spoke. "If you are concerned, Kosh, about what place you might have amongst us… know what we are." And with that, the Shade-chaplain ceased making the effort to remain a wholly physical being and instead revealed his half-Ascended state. Lyta's jaw dropped. Shaleson visibly restrained from sighing before joining Danvers in the process.
I just stood there between the two. "As you can see, Kosh, we have come further than you might think."
The former commercial telepath shook herself out of her reaction. "Are you… you're not human."
I shook my head, briefly discorporating with my Taelon meridians just to emphasize the point. "That is … a much more delicate and complicated question than it might otherwise seem. In so many ways that matter, I and my people have not sacrificed one inch of our humanity. In many others, we are not even remotely human. A matter of perspective, perhaps."
I turned back to Kosh. "I won't ask you again, Kosh."
He turned away. Again, that just barely ghosted dissonance in the 'song' of the collective energy being made itself felt before being translated to English. "Go. Your offer is welcome, but cannot be accepted."
I shook my head in regret. "I would have liked to have shown you our Wisdom."
I didn't bother waiting to leave his quarters before stepping sideways with my bodyguards back to my Heartroot. Shaleson didn't bother waiting for us to separate before throwing her two cents into the fire. "Well that was a productive meeting, your Holiness."
I didn't even bother glaring at her. "I can't say I was expecting otherwise. Bastard is several hundred thousands of years old. You get stuck in your ways."
Shaleson just gave a blank expression in response. It didn't take a mind-reader to see the skepticism she had with the notion that such a thing had much to do with one's actual age.
I looked over at Danvers. "Did you get any readings that the Vorlons or Shadows were screwing around with Dho-Na Curvature phenomena?"
Danvers shook his head. "Nothing I could pick up. Not that this would be definitive, of course, You Who Are Hidden."
I blinked. That was a new one. Made sense, given how the Censor 'named' me, but still. I shook my head. "Well, as long as the station itself isn't exposed to any eldritch contamination then we shouldn't have to worry about narrative causality there despite how openly we've been moving. The rest … is on them."
Danvers merely bowed his head slightly. "It is as you say, Holiness."
I sat down to think for a while. Without even a fragment of Kosh, many of my hoped plans for the future wouldn't get to pan out. This would require some serious rethinking. Still; it wasn't like I could just amputate a limb and run off slapstick with it into the night; if the being wanted to die for his cause, well, that was literally his hill to die on and I had to respect that. Like it was another story, but I at least had to respect it.
I found myself, a few days later, back in the cradle of my people's civilization, refocusing on the training regimens that my people had developed over time. While I had other Avatars to handle the bulk of the training methods, I found that there was something calming or mentally stabilizing about invoking the soul-cultivation art of The Glow from the Last Dragon 'Verse. Going through the forms of the arts, as modified to include biotic techniques and parapsionic talents, was coming more and more readily to me -- though I knew better than to try to force it.
Today, I was sparring with Shaleson and Danvers both at once, in the depths of space roughly a lightyear out from Sol. Though I myself had not taken the true plunge to becoming a half-Ascended, even in my Avatar state, the sheer volume and strength of my soul -- thanks to the Red Sign -- had left me with functionally the same 'tier' of existence as they; shifting to a discorporate state was perhaps even easier for me than it was for them. The sparring we were engaging in was one that borrowed heavily on biotic charge FTL maneuvering, parapsionic teleportation, and blasts of photon-ray cannon charged energies with full banishment effectors all around; depending on our Wards and personal shielding methods from the various exotic technologies I'd acquired for my people to protect us.
The constant flashes of lights as we ran the gamut of the defined five light-second diameter of the 'sparring ring' -- a range only feasible thanks to the scanning and scrying techniques we all three had access to -- in my attempts to barrage the other two or trick them into striking one another, and their attempts to strike me in kind, all happening at speeds that were impossible for a vanilla human to even process, made a strobing effect on the sensor feeds and readouts for all three of us. Despite that, due to the distances involved, the actual mark-one eyeball really got almost nothing to see; and thanks to the sheer processing speeds at which our minds could actually operate at, the whole endeavor was if anything actually quite calm and relaxing. I was able to treat the whole thing almost as a form of kata rather than the live-fire exorcise that it really was.
A burst of light here, a parapsionic and Glow-reinforced grasping of an 8th-Ray reinforced beam of intensely charged light there with the physics-defying result of it being bent towards another combatant; a kaleidoscope of bursts of Cherenkov-blue bursts from eezo-backed dark energy manipulation there, a purple-black but somehow brightly visible corona of a sloppy teleport over there … and of course the randomized obstacles added by the observer drones to make the whole process more interesting for all involved; they added up to a sort of pyrotechnical display; one that would never be seen outside of the radius of the 'ring' thanks to the cloaking and concealment precautions my bodyguards had ironically insisted on … that were based on my own protocols in the matter.
So of course it was in the midst of this process as I dodged yet another round of white-yellow beams of barely contained energy while I wasn't even focusing exactly what I was doing but rather simply doing it -- as that was how all martial arts cliches happened -- that I finally felt the 'click' of the cultivation technique of The Glow finally fall into place, and 'achieved enlightenment'. A fact that was eminently revealed to my pair of bodyguards by the glowing crest of the Red Sign upon my forehead.
I raised my hand up and pinged the other two to indicate a break in the spar. Despite the vacuum, I managed to mutter to myself thanks to the sheer abusrdity of the collective violations of conventional physics I was operating under, and in a flash of red lightning manifested a mirror with which to examine myself. And sure enough, there the eye-distracting pattern that could not quite be made out was, somehow simultaneously blatantly obvious and yet hidden beneath my skin. "I had better not have just become a gorram Exalted."
If some asshole had plugged me into that particular 'Verse I was just going to pack my shit up and go home.
I knew the odds were that it was just memetic overlay from narrative similarity -- martial arts memes were gonna martial arts, after all -- but still. That barrel of joy I did not need. I was both too young and pretty to endure such things and too old for that shit.
A/N: Just to be painfully clear -- no, I'm not adding Exalted to this story. The MC knows the setting and is finding the overlap ominous, but that's as far as it goes. So please consider that theory shot in the gluteus maximus and left to die on the roadside with total indignity.
<Author-san> "Don't worry, Mark. You *definitely* shouldnot read into the fact that you just had a martial arts sparring match *in space* which you ended because your *soul* started to radiate a weird mark on your *forehead*."
<Andes> "What the actual shit, Author-san?! Why you gotta play me like this?"
<Author-san> [IRONIC LAUGHTER INTENSIFIES]
