Stellar Eninges - For others, the creation of a Warp Drive is a process of industry, religion, and logistics, minds of war and production coming together to defy the infinite distances between the tiny beds of safety couraing through the void between worlds. For the Irrita, it is the equivalent of repairing an engine for a car they are restoring.
(Focus: A young Irrita in the middle of constructing their very first Warp Drive..)
The conduit hummed, and they hummed along with it. Then they wound it around a secondary resonance coil and listened to how the noise changed. Three windings was too many, and one too few. But two - two was excellent. Now the power flowing to the primary coil would modulate itself with the flux of the secondary coil.
They stepped back, beholding the dissected guts of the warp engine scattered around the hanger. It had been the effort of several years to gather all of the parts, and several donations from elders who remembered the draw of a foreign star. At first they hadn't been able to properly explain the feeling that had grasped them by the taproot. It had been a mysterious thing, a
pull toward the beyond. They had known that they needed to leave the planet of their seeding and travel to find a world they liked better.
But no explanation was needed. They'd approached a Song-of-the-Void and tried to ask for passage on their ship. The Song-of-the-Void had regarded them carefully, then asked probing questions. As soon as they'd explained that they had to leave home, to go elsewhere and taste the sunlight of other stars, the elder had quivered in amusement.
"Itchy leaves, we call it. The humans have another name for it. Wanderlust, though for us it is more about finding a
new home than forever seeking the unknown. You will not be satisfied until you travel the stars under your own power, in your own ship, and find your own place to call your home. I will not let you travel aboard my ship. It will not provide the nutrients you need. Build your own. I have spare cabling I will grant you. Let me send you the teachings of the first-Song-of-the-Void, and some errata on more recent discoveries. Your ship shall be as unique as any other, but it is not necessary for every seedling to find the sun on their own."
With that they'd been granted valuable materials and readings that were in their own way even more valuable. They became a song-of-study and subsisted off basic nutrients. Over time word seemed to travel amongst the songs-of-the-void, and they were invited to speak to more and more of those who plied the space between worlds. Each time, the song-of-the-void took the song-of-study's measure, and once they passed some kind of threshold they were granted advice - and components.
Over time they had accumulated everything they needed to build a true ship between the stars. The hull had been the hardest part, but they had secured an agreement to export trade goods for a major city on the Unbound Rains, in return for a ship hull constructed to fit their specifications.
Now I need only construct the drive and demonstrate its function, so that I may determine the appropriate specifications.
The song-of-study surveyed the parts arrayed around the hanger, each connected to each other by a byzantine network of cables, conduits and living tendrils. It looked like what it was - a forest scraped clean of dirt and arrayed neatly on the metal before them. Now it was their job to layer the roots, ensure the nutrients flowed and that every component was in balance with its counterparts.
They hummed along to the shifting sounds of the dormant machinery, feeling for the notes of disharmony in accordance to the teachings of the first-song-of-the-void. They reached out to a bulging green sac full of green algae, lit from within by a vibrant electrical light. It was hot, too hot.
The lubricant-breeder will run thin in time. The heat of the light must be balanced. Typical wisdom would put it near the skin of the ship, but my flux-coil unit runs cool. I will place them close together, and tune the light to the output of the coil. The light will dim when the coil is not active, but that is when less lubricant will be needed regardless.
The soon-to-be Song-of-the-Void tucked the two dissimilar parts together, stringing a new connection between the necessary nodes. They continued like this for hours, assembling the parts of the engine together in a manner that would have looked like madness to an engineer of any other race. But to an Irrita, it was natural. If the engine was as a forest, then every thing was connected to every other thing, was it not? Sunlight and fungi, nutrients and soil, all were elements of the dance that made for a healthy forest. And so it was with engines. It was simply a matter of balancing the living ecosystem that was the warp-drive.
The song-of-study mused on the designs of the other races as they removed a fuse from the power breaker and replaced it with a long tube of electrolyte. If there was a short in the system then the current would reach the primary electrolyte heart and it would beat frantically, resetting the entire system. On and on the changes would propagate in ways complex and simple.
Such a thing would be anathema to the engineers of other races. For them every system needed to be isolated, segregated and performing its function independently of the others. Such a thing - it made sense. It was easier to ensure proper function when each unit was in its own place and could be measured independently. But the inefficiency in such a system galled the young Irrita. If a proper ecosystem was constructed then errors would self-correct, and if an issue was large enough it would propagate through the system and shut the entire thing down.
Granted, it was harder to trace an issue in such a system, but if the Irrita excelled at any task, it was understanding the ecosystems under their care. If their warp engine failed they would trace the symptoms back to their source and fix the issue, likely as not grafting a new part to compensate for the problem and carrying on. Every Irrita ship was its own organism, as unique in its capabilities and biology as any member of a living species could be.
With a tense moment of expectation, they ramped up the power on the assembled warp drive. The whole system hummed before a discordant note sounded, this time from a sparking electrical plug. They reseated the plug and wrapped an insulating vine around it and tried again. This time the entire edifice powered up smoothly, ramping up through the spectrum until it left the natural senses of the young song-of-study. They stepped towards the instruments arrayed on the near side of the hanger, studying the waveforms as they peaked and stabilized.
The song-of-study clenched their roots in satisfaction, then saved the data and ramped down the power. They would need to send the readings to Unbound Rains for the ship hull to be built accordingly and arrange transport there with their new drive, but that was a matter of logistics. They had built a
working warp-drive from donated parts and surplus goods. That it was not a new accomplishment was not important. It was a triumph nonetheless.
They were flagged down upon leaving the hanger by its owner. "What's the warmth of the wind?" the elder Irrita asked.
They proudly presented the data upon the pad, and the retired song-of-stars studied it carefully, then their leaves colored in recognition of a deed well done. "Warm winds, then. You shall have a fine ship. Here is the contact for a seedling of mine, who can transport you and your prize to Unbound Rains."
"I thank you, elder. You have given me the gift of growth."
The elder dipped their leaves in acknowledgement. "You will soon be a Song-of-the-Void yourself, and responsible for the growth of others. Nurture all you find, and you shall know the same thanks. Indeed, should you find a young Irrita with itchy leaves, I hope you shall help them find their own soil in any way you can."
The Song-of-the-Stars watched the younger Irrita bumble away, full of life and hope. They let that light straighten a crooked trunk, enjoying the thought of a bright future. Now that the war was won, and the Shipwright's Alliance and the Glimmering Federation beyond had become valuable trading partners, the friendly stars had grown and grown again. Not only did wealth and parts abound, but the stories of distant worlds were finding eager homes among his people. More and more youths were developing itchy leaves and seeking to travel to find new homes.
Good. Let our people spread. Let them taste new soils and encourage Responsible growth wherever they go.
Author's note: I do want to express that any other engineer that looks at an Irrita warp drive would probably run screaming in the other direction. It's a complicated piece of engineering where every piece is connected to every other piece, and nothing is standard. You can't change anything without understanding the whole thing, and that goes against how basically every other species builds things.
Not really? Your system does not work without xenos getting put into a Protectorate for legal reasons and the framework it would give you and them for your interactions.
Awww. I love the little suckers. Maybe we could do a free action to let them have one or two of the terraformable planets in our territory, and make
that a protectorate? Could we ask them if they want that at the very least? I'd be willing to give up just about any of the terraformable planets to them. I imagine they'd like Megaflora, Planetary Mangroves or Temperate Forests and Mild Arctic?
