Seven
A small planet 165 light years from Forest
“Clomonastik,” the Governor called. “Come in, old friend. I’ve got good news for you.”
Clomonastik III was an up-and-coming officer in the Grugell Imperial Navy. The Grugell were a heavily militaristic society, and ruthlessness was rewarded and encouraged. In that and all other respects Clomonastik was a model Grugell officer, recently promoted to the rank of Group Commander, and he was ripe for an Occupation Group command.
As he strode into the Governor’s office, he projected the ideal image that young Grugell officers strove to achieve. His bearing was cold and efficient. He was tall and thin, as was the Grugell ideal, his hair and eyes jet black, his skin stark white, the result of a millennium of ruthless eugenics on the part of a succession of autocratic Emperors. The Grugell Royal House had long been fanatical about “genetic purity,” the result of which had been the elimination of any racial or ethnic variation among the Grugell.
“Sir!” Clomonastik barked, coming to attention in front of Governor Bortattisk IX’s high, polished black desk. The Governor was an old friend of Clomonastik’s family, and had been an effective patron for the young officer.
“Sit down,” the Governor ordered. Clomonastik complied, sweeping his black cloak to the side. He perched himself on the high stool in front of the Governor’s desk, adjusting his uniform carefully. Clomonastik wore the standard issue – a tight, high-collared black tunic, black leggings, polished black boots, and the ubiquitous floor-length black cloak. He flicked a barely visible speck of lint from his boot top. The Grugell were almost universally fastidious, and Clomonastik was no exception.
“Well, Clomonastik, I’m pleased to tell you that I have orders for you, from the Imperium.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Yes. You’ve been ordered to take command of an Occupation Group forming now at our Navy base at Gigatos City. We’ve charted a new planet – habitable, but only just. It’s a high-gravity world, but rich in mineral and herbal resources. It’s on the edge of our space, Clomonastik, an exposed post.”
“Exposed, sir? We are alone in the Galaxy, sir.”
“We thought, Clomonastik. We thought we were alone in the Galaxy.” The Governor grinned, revealing pointed, serrated white teeth behind thin, jet-black lips. He raised one hand, pointing a black-clawed finger at the younger officer. “We have explored less than one star system in a million, you know. It would have been arrogant of us to assume we were the only intelligent race in the universe.”
“Sir.” Clomonastik offered no retort. His patron’s friendly demeanor was misleading. Bortattisk IX was not to be underestimated. He’d had underlings disintegrated for minor insubordination.
“And, we’ve now discovered otherwise. A scout ship sent to the new planet detected a settled area on the surface, and an orbiting ship departed into subspace within a short time of their arrival. They left the area undetected.”
“A settled area, sir? As in a town of some sort?” Clomonastik scratched his pointed chin with one claw. “That would indicate an intelligent race indeed, sir.”
“Yes, not to mention the orbiting ship.” The Governor stood up, walking around his desk to pace the office floor. “The Navy has sent its newest construct to the planet to conduct an orbital survey. Are you familiar with the cloaking technology that has been tested?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“Well, it’s been placed on one of our newest frigates. This technology warps electromagnetic radiation around its energy field, which has the effect of rendering a cloaked ship undetectable by any means we’ve been able to devise.”
“Clever indeed, sir.”
“Yes, but your Occupation Group ships won’t be so equipped, I’m sorry to say.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be tasked to occupy that planet, Clomonastik. You’ll be given twice the normal complement of troops, and an enhanced orbital power station. The Emperor has personally stated his confidence in you, Clomonastik. You understand what that means? The consequences of a failure?”
“Yes sir,” Clomonastik replied. His cold, hard bearing spoke eloquently of his confidence.
“At any rate, you’ll take command of the Group in three days. This new frigate has been sent to scout the planet and conduct an orbital survey. You should have that report before you’re ready to take the Occupation Group out.”
“Yes sir.” At the Governor’s waved dismissal, Clomonastik took his leave.
Born of a fiercely militaristic and wholly authoritarian society, Clomonastik was the result of a thousand millennia of Grugell evolution. As he left the Governor’s office, pondering his role in the Emperor’s relentless agenda of expansion, a snippet of his Crèche-school instruction came back to him:
The glorious history of the Grugell race began with the rise from the dust of a species of fierce predators in the deserts of Planet Grugell’s largest continent. The fierce intelligence of these proto-Grugell led the development of weapons, the genesis of the technology that would one day dominate the stars. Rising quickly to the top of the hierarchy of life on their world, our ancestors quickly used their superior abilities to either destroy or subjugate all other life forms on the planet. With the evolutionary advent of the modern Grugell, our ancestors spread to conquer the entire world in a matter of a few hundred years.
Following that period was a long period of racial and nationalistic warfare, lasting for many thousands of years. Technology advanced rapidly during this time, driven by conflict, until battles were fought at the very edge of space itself.
This period of warfare ended with the glorious rise to power of the first Emperor, Traskellid I, known as Traskellid the Ruthless.
Emperor Traskellid began the glorious campaign to eliminate the racial and national variations that led to the violent wars. During this same period, Traskellid and his successor Traskellid II began the search for other habitable worlds. The vision of the Traskellids was that the Grugell should expand into other star systems, and that vision was to be realized when the light barrier was penetrated late in the reign of Traskellid II.
The expansion of the Grugell Empire extends to the present day. The Grugell remain the only intelligent life forms in the known Galaxy, and as our Empire grows, the destiny of the Grugell is plain: to rule over a Galaxy that is home to only the Grugell Empire.
The irony of that last portion wasn’t lost on Clomonastik. His Occupation would be the first to confront another intelligent, space-faring species. For Clomonastik personally, this assignment would mean either Empire-wide eminence and a Governorship, or disintegration. There was no other alternative.
It was the chance of a lifetime – in the event of failure, it would be the end of his life. Clomonastik knew and accepted the cost of failure, as did all in the Grugell Navy.
He hurried down the corridor towards his office. He had a tremendous amount of work to do before he assumed his new command.
Oh-ho! And all this time I figured that the Rocs would be the major point of conflict…
The Roc might give us an “End of Jurassic Park — saved by T-Rex” moment. That’d be fun.
Here’s hoping!
Maybe pale skin and black uniform mimics the Roc’s favorite prey.
You know who else liked black uniforms?
Hugo Boss?
Are we the baddies?
Ninjas?
Jesuits?
New Zealand rugby?
Those players do not look all Black.
Their national basketball team is called the Tall Blacks.
Jake and Elwood?
Here’s hoping some of the colonists and/or those owning the colony ships like Larry Niven stories. I fully expect some improvised weapons could be devised against the uncloaked frigates. (I also note Animal skirted the question of how the cloaked ship sees anything if the electromagnetic spectrum is warped around the vessel / its energy field… I do prefer the “sensors / emitters record all incoming on one side and output it on the other” variation of stealth for this reason).
Also interesting — the Grugell think of our type of planets as “high-gravity”… wonder just how robust they’ll be if it gets hand to hand given that suggests lighter bone structures and all. I probably listen to too many “Humans are Deathworlders!” audio tracks falling asleep to not wonder such things.
And of course — good to know Clomonastik is the very model of a modern Grugell general.
Who are the Grugell fighting if they’re all identical with one government?
I’m guessing the Grugell haven’t fought any actual wars in a very long time, and are therefore lacking in live combat experience.
This was my main gripe about the last season of The Expanse. How do you build/supply/feed/crew/pay a warfleet without anybody noticing?
I lost interest in The Expanse during the second season. Is it worth watching more?
I thought so. Unfortunately the magic “alien technology” plays a bigger role as the series goes along, but I still liked it.
Oh, that’s just a line item on a currupt foreign aid agency budget.
In context, this fleet was the size of the planetary government’s fleet. Skimming off ~100% of the government’s military budget (plus the personnel and industrial capacity needed) would be quite an accounting trick.
Not Adahn:
Yeah, the magi-tech kind of drove me off from the show. I understood what they were doing with it, but that’s the type of sci-fi that I’m not a big fan of (see also, a lot of the 70’s hippie influenced stuff).
Neph: Still more hard sci-fi than Star Trek.
They’re fighting each other, of course. The race for cultural and genetic purity has no end…
… you know who else sought genetic purity, had their creator like black uniforms and wanted to Exterminate! all other life in the galaxy…..
No idea what you’re talking about, dude. I don’t follow Star Wars.
@SDF, The Supreme Dalek?
RoaT — I wasn’t being that specific… all the Daleks qualify in my mind… but yeah, you got it.
And Sean will be by to bring you a bag of jelly babies, EvilSheldon…
🙂
We just had a 6 point earthquake just east in Julian Ca.
Google told me before it started shaking the house, I had about 5 seconds warning. Thats Fuckin Cool.
Hmm… usgs says a 5.2… looks like you got downgraded. Sorry. 😉
Interesting that there look like there were some pre-shocks (there’s 3.3 yesterday) and minor aftershocks (2.8,2.9,2.7,2.6, 3.0,2.5) — whatever was binding on that Pacific plate must still be shifting.
No Otisberg today, most likely.
Don’t worry. Buy up the desert. The Big One has been overdue for 50 years.
Im not a fucking disaster whore, downgraded? Good
That notification is cool.
The quake was no big deal, Julian shakes all the time.
The alert was beyond cool if you consider the speed of a quake vs. The internet.
5 seconds is a lifetime
They do move fast. I once saw a surface wave crossing a quad at school.
During the Loma Prieta quake I saw the waves in the parking lot of my apartment. Both cool and terrifying.
It is pretty amazing that they can send out an alert that quickly.
Yeah, five seconds is ample time to get under a table; at least one’s head.
Is the doorway advice deprecated?
Doorways were better in older construction.
I got the alert up in LA and felt it 2 seconds later as about a 3 here. Definitely cool though a bit unnecessary 150 miles away.
I’d rather get the earthquake alerts from too far away than Amber Alerts from 100s of miles away that are generally domestic disputes.
Yes, Amber was forever to be found.
Turned that off on the phone.
Glibs commenters hardest hit: https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/north-cascades-grizzly-bear-reintroduction-stalled-20269896.php
Katy Perry and her all-girl band of intrepid explorers have complete their 10 minute trip to and from space.
I don’t think there were any trans women on board, so does it really count?
Does Gayle King qualify?
Sounds like the basis of a 70s animated series.
Grugell is almost an anagram for Luger. I wonder if that’s intentional.
Aside from the Empire in Star Wars, the space Nazi thing hasn’t been done that many times. Usually alien antagonists are just warlike such as Klingons and Tharks. Otherwise they’re straight up monsters.
evil empires – terrible writing advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Way_MdkVg
Space Romans would be an interesting possibility, as they were tolerant of different religions and cultures.
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Nah. I just thought it sounded cool.
The aesthetics of alien languages in fiction make for interesting reading.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IndoEuropeanAlienLanguage
Either the language is not that different from English or it’s a starfish alien language.
The prevalence of humanoid aliens in sci-fi never bothered me. Parallel evolution is a thing.
I’d say the most creative alien antagonists are the Borg. They’re basically space zombies, but they also have technology and a culture of sorts.
Katy Perry and her all-girl band of intrepid explorers have complete their 10 minute trip to and from space.
Space clown car.
I am actually mildly irritated that I can’t find an English language version of this scene from Pushing Daisies outside of this shitty format.
We loved that show and were so disappointed when it was cancelled.
Successfully?
Depends on your point of view, but all were safe and healthy.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/bond-arms-introduces-a-hideout-gun-with-presidential-bling-44820391
lulz.
Those things are so silly expensive, and they seem kind of primitive, machining-wise.
Trump is president. Shouldn’t that be some cheesy gold plating?
$850 and they didn’t even bother to give it a gold TiN finish? Lame.
Does Melania even wear Lamé? Doesn’t seem her style.
Baseball situation quiz, I saw a video on this that asked the question, but I happen to know the answer, the video didn’t give it:
Runners on 1st and 3rd, 1 out. Offense attempts a suicide squeeze, both baserunners take off and batter bunts the ball. Batter doesn’t get ball down and pitcher makes a nice diving catch on the ball as runner on 3rd crosses home. Pitcher throws to first doubling up runner who started on 1st.
Does the run count?
I believe the answer is no, because the runner on third would have needed to touch the bag after the fly was caught to advance.
True
To advance legally…but…
That is a hint, but the answer is actually pretty weird.
Answer time, and Neph got the start of it.
The run doesn’t count IF the defense throws the ball to third and challenges the runner tagging up. If so, the runner is called out and the run doesn’t count.
However, they already got the third out at first, so they cannot get a fourth out, so the run counts, as it scored before the 3rd out was made.
However, however, baseball figured this out a long time ago (due to a similar situation coming up) and they created a “fourth out” rule. You are allowed to get a fourth out, if necessary. So if the defense challenged at third, the runner was called out for the fourth out of the inning, and the run doesn’t count.
However, however, however, if the defense left the field before doing this, the run counts.
Grugells remind me of Farscape’s Sebaceans.