I love how awkward that conversation was, with the Sivkit acting like we were going to eat them and we were still savage predators. Zalk’s reaction was the best.
>The Paltan representative, Tlev, raised an amber paw and widened his already massive eyes. In my sole interaction with him, he’d claimed to have been born centuries ago;
Yay! At least one of the popsicles succeeded in adapting to awakening in a new world.
Part 30! The Bissems have gotten a trial run with the Sapient Coalition, and find a mundane meeting about Venlil health studies interrupted by a maniacal Sivkit, with incoherent rambling claiming to have been attacked. Despite Loxsel’s melodramatics, the picture painted by his video leads the SC to investigate, and assess the threat to border states like the Paltans. The Krev Consortium’s attack doesn’t reflect well on them to the unwitting SC.
What do you think of the Sivkit ambassador, and the wider implications for the state of the Grand Herd? What do you think of our peek at the affairs and state of the Sapient Coalition?
As always, thank you for reading!
The SC seems to be conducting itself well, particularly compared to what a mess most diplomacy had been in NoP 1. It's good to see everyone's, more or less, adjusted. It's an excellent sign that a bunch of Coalition members laughed at the claims of humans being violent. It sounds like things are running more or less smoothly... at least out in the open. Behind the scenes is a different story as demonstrated by the Yotul and who knows how many others. The proposed course of action seems reasonable: take in refugees, assess the threat, but be clear it's not your jurisdiction. Honestly I think that was handled about as well as it could have been given that they weren't briefed on what the Sivkit wanted to talk about and only enough information was shared to confirm the attack.
Which does make me wonder if the Sivkit have more information they *didn't* want to share, deciding that a 'competing' predator would be enough for the SC to act. I suspect the real problem is going to start with this scouting mission: either because of the 'shoot first' tactics of the Consortium (if that's now their standard operating procedure unlike when they met the humans) or potentially because of the discovery of humans. It's entirely possible the SC spots something that gives away there are humans on that planet. All it would take is one of their mega structures clearly being a scaled up design of something unique to human culture or history. But overall right now I think things are fine between the two factions, I just don't think it will stay that way because then what's the story?
Hell, you don't even need a scaled up monument. If you can get a stealth ship close enough to eavesdrop on signals, you'd pick up broadcasts in Terran Standard (Or whatever the language name is) and video feeds with humans.
It's only close because I'm taking non-native speakers into account. From what I found Mandarine has about 1.1billion speakers with 929million being native speakers. English has 1.4billion speakers but most of them are as a second language with only 362million being native speakers. So on the one hand it has 300million more total speakers but in native speakers it's behind by ~550million, more than the total number of native English speakers. Honestly if China wasn't so set on being an Authoritarian dictatorship hostile to the West and so antagonistic to their neighbors they'd have a decent shot of encroaching on English's default status as lingua franca.
And that all could happen in some far off future. A big part of the reason English is so popular is because of one empire and then another using it and the fact that the world's largest economy uses it. If America declines in wealth and influence it is entirely possible for a country like China to spread it's influence and take over a lot of the global economy, which would incentivize using it. We're also looking at a future where real time computer translation is getting better and better, so it's possible the popularity of learning second languages will actually decline as it becomes less necessary.
But yeah if things keep going as they are it would probably be mostly, if not entirely, English. It's just fun to break down other potential outcomes.
I'd say non-native is more important, since these are people that learned the language for a reason. It's also simpler since it's a bit less ambiguous when written.
“ It sounds like things are running more or less smoothly... at least out in the open. Behind the scenes is a different story as demonstrated by the Yotul and who knows how many others.”
What are you talking about? All we’ve seen is that different members have different ideas and opinions on how the SC should conduct itself, and have their own agendas outside of (but not necessarily in opposition to) the larger SC. That’s just normal behavior of a functioning and healthy democracy; It’s no different than how American Congress is divided up between democrats and republicans, and a slew of minor 3rd parties. it’s when everyone is in perfect lock-step with everyone all the time that you should be worried about rampant corruption.
The Yotul are literally blackmailing other members and collaborating with an outside group talking about starting a war with the SC, what are **you** talking about? Blackmail certainly makes it's way into politics but it's illegal and a form of corruption and collaborating with someone who want's to go to war with your allies, going so far as to break the rules and blackmail potential members on their behalf, is *far* from 'the normal behavior of a democracy'.
It's not that the Yotul disagree. It's that they're corrupt, blackmailing, traitors.
They weren't just talking about the blockade though. They literally tried to bribe and blackmail the Bissem into backing the Axur joining the coalition. That's a whole other thing. And it's not just 'wanting a roadmap', it's *demanding* one under threat of war. It's the difference between a Senator wanting a roadmap to when their state will receiving funding for something vs threatening to take it by force with their national guard if they don't get their way.
I feel like we've read that chapter from different realities
They have a lot of social tension pent up and nobody is willing to so much as talk to them. Societal 180° shifts don't happen smooth, like , at all (gestures at Eastern Europe IRL) . There's probably a significant faction of the arxur who want to go back to the old ways.
In my opinion it wasn't so much of a "open up or we will declare war" as "please let us out or we're literally going to explode and take a chunk out of you in the process"
And regarding the blackmail I'm pretty sure that Bissems initially accused them of trying to do that but he assured them that it was rather not the point. In the end everyone left that meeting happier than before.
What Onso did either classifies as blackmail or extortion depending on how you look at it. The Yotul made a big fuss about blocking the Bissem then used that as leverage to *force* them to have that meeting. The Bissem *wanted to leave* when they heard an Axur was there and Onso used the threat of their being blocked to *make them* have the meeting anyways.
>"If you want my help, you need to at least have a sit-down with Kaisal."
It was so transparent I'm kind of shocked people don't get it. It's some "that's a nice store, would be a shame if something were to happen to it" shit. He's offering to 'help' with a problem he admitted the Yotul deliberately created as a *political tool* despite actually wanting the opposite.
>“I’ve taken the liberty of strengthening our military to a respectable fleet size once more. We don’t want trouble, but let’s just say we’re done with quarantine. It’d be better for everyone if that was as friends. Let us go about our business with those who are ready to move on.”
It is *literally* a case of open up or we'll declare war. He's saying they won't 'fire the first shots' but they *will* breach the blockade, which *will* likely end in them being fired upon. It's like saying "I won't declare war, I'll just march my troops into your territory", it's functionally the same thing.
I get the impression you're right, we did read that chapter from two wildly different perspectives. I can't even fathom someone thinking that was a *friendly* exchange with aliens that were not at all going to initiate hostilities with the SC and that it was really just a great time all around.
It's a shame because after the collective trauma they suffered I do think they *believe* they're doing what's right. Hell they might even think, in a twisted sort of way, they're doing humanity a *favor* by pushing the limits on the acceptance of 'predators' to the maximum. But they're doing the wrong things in an 'ends justifies the means' kind of way that I don't think is going to work out for them. In other words I don't think it's so much the Yotul being *malicious* as it is them thinking they need to be the assholes here for the 'greater good'.
The consortium identified the ships as sivkit by their design. UN ships might resemble older UN designs from the data the humans provided, giving them pause.
True, although I doubt modern UN ships look anything like what they had before the colonists left and the SC has no reason to use old designs. The best shot would be something retrofitted that was too costly to just scrap for better tech, but they really have every reason to bring their latest and best given the potential scale of the threat here.
I don't think the design principles would change that much. Humanity was already interplanetary by first contact, the major upgrades would just be weapons, shields, and FTL drives. There wouldn't be major changes to things like thruster arrangement or bridge location because of those.
The Sivkit ambassador tells a very disheartening tale of how most of the former members of the Herbivore Federation are so absolutely conditioned into hysterical fear, that only a focused occupation and reeducation could possibly counter generations of Federation Brainwashing.
The Sivkit Grand Herd probably lost an estimate of at least 15% of their total assets on that first strike, and seeing as how they still suffer from Federation Conditioning, they’re probably so demoralized that an estimated 2% more will be lost from “Stampede related injuries”.
The Coalition’s Central Government seems to work as intended, but everything operating OUTSIDE of it, tells a far different story. The UN of the SC does it’s job, but the individual international politics are where everything falls apart
Poor fellow is way out of his depth... Also a clear indicator of what the Federation did to people for the Bissems.
If Loxsel is the calmest and/or bravest ambassador they could come up with, I don't think the Grand Herd is in a much better state than they were when they cut off contact, and now they've lost a bunch of ships and people...
I'm hoping someone listens to Tassi, or thinks about the Tseia (HEY DUSTIN!) and points out that while there were definitely hundreds of thousands killed, it may not have been "for no reason". In the final analysis, it may end up being considered a *poor* reason, but "trying to avoid being outed to the genocidal psychopaths the next galactic spur over" is pretty darn rational.
"But why didn't you answer their hails?"
"And let people who were from the Federation that we thought still existed see that there were a bunch of predators out here, and maybe get word back to the folks who apparently get off on incinerating whole planets if they have predators on them? Gosh, I can't *imagine* why we didn't go that route."
My position: These deaths suck, but they're still part of the legacy of the Federation's centuries long reign of terror. I mean, sure, that hippo lumbering towards you *might* want to play games, but if all you know about hippos is that they're terrifying murder beasts, you might shoot first and not bother asking questions. Yeah, as an analogy it has a number of flaws, but the point still comes through, I think.
I think the peek at relations ex-Federation members have with the Sapient Coalition is much more interesting than the peek at the affairs and state of the Sapient Coalition itself.
The fact that the Sivkit were already broadcasting their meeting with the unidentified Consortium ships on FTL channels undid the whole reason to destroy them in the first place.
This reinforces my position that the Krev Consortium should have taken the Sivkit fleet as prisoners. Sure the training crews weren't ready to board ships with tens of thousands of crew and passengers; but they didn't have to. They had the ability close within range of their anti-warp technology, disable the ships' weapons and broadcasting arrays and force them into orbit for a nice orderly evacuation and debriefing with additional Consortium reinforcements.
it feels like we might be heading that way, but at the same time I can't see how that comes about without some fairly severe idiot-ball-holding (or some in-story externalities we haven't seen yet that completely prevent communication). The SC would have to attempt to make contact with the Consortium as a very early part of their investigation - given how well-shielded and concealed most KC worlds are, they'll probably get weird traces of stuff plus spotting Tellus, which should lead to them sending messages that way, which should in turn lead to one or both sides pretty much immediately figuring out that the Federation is already mostly dismantled, Earth is fine actually, and that the Dandelion fleets existed and one of them ended up out past Sivkit space.
The SC don't have much reason to go to war, and the KC only do if they shut out absolutely 100% of all incoming information and just execute an all-out attack on the "Federation" with their eyes closed. There's no way they could miss the existence of the SC and the survival of Earth and humanity during any sort of combat or intelligence gathering. Maybe if they realise they've been spotted, launch the drone fleet on "RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE" mode and lock down all their worlds? Do absolutely no in-person fighting or observation whatsoever and somehow block out all incoming attempts at comms or diplomacy while also stopping any random individuals in their entire alliance from looking at who they're killing and realising it's not the Feds?
Are the humans on Tellus going to be Jaslip 2.0 when the Krev try to "save" them in an emergency relocation?
I think one of two things will happen.
1) The Consortium sees scouts from "Federation" space coming their way and assume they've been found, so they fully deploy their military forces in order to eliminate the "Federation". By the time anyone notices they're fighting Humans among the "Federation" species, either their technological edge has already led to too many casualties on the SC side for the SC to just let it go, or the SC is aware of what the Consortium did to the Jaslips and is out to dismantle another seemingly-genocidal regime.
2) The Krev realize quickly that the Federation is gone, but immediately silo that information, clamp down 1984-style on all information in the Consortium, and persue the war regardless because without a common enemy keeping everyone afraid there's nothing holding the Consortium together; and they stand to lose their position of leadership and all of the privelege that comes with it.
That 2nd scenario is probably not going to happen since it sounds too much like a rehash of what the Federation itself did (made the Aruxur the boogeymen of the Galaxy to validate their own existence and actions).
Might I suggest some scenarios:
1: the misunderstanding with the consortium is resolved peacefully (it’s not like either wants a war, nor are they diametrically opposed ideologically so why not?) combined with Aruxur relations improving, this causes Federation remnants to flip out, thinking they are being surrounded on all sides by the Aruxur Dominion and dominion clones, and begin a second war.
2: this ends up becoming a Cold War between the SC and consortium, maybe THIS situation is resolved without much bloodshed, but tensions continue to mount, after all how do we know that their claims that the federation are gone are, in fact, true? They might be “cured” humans working FOR the feds! Like the dark forest scenario or actual Cold War how can you be so trusting when total extinction is a possibility if you’re wrong?
I actually could see the second scenario you said is probably not gonna happen, happening. The Consortium has basically become the very thing they tried to hide from in the Federation: A group of top-down authority states that are more than willing to hurt member states and attack complete strangers for the sake of perceived safety. the Jaslips and the Thafki are in similar boats, after all.
Are the jaslips and thafki in the same boat though? Really?
Because I feel there’s a subtle, but important difference between:
“Look, there’s a bunch of genuine psychos that’ll exterminate us all, or worse, if they find us and frankly I am not willing to risk the extinction of both our species because you want to be stubborn, and if that means dragging you off kicking and screaming and then nuke the rest to cover up all evidence then so be it!”
And:
“Well we COULD send our secret fleet to dispatch the cannibal fascists besieging your planet, but then we’d also show our hand that these monsters are no actual threat and we’d end up losing our political leverage over the other cowed idiots. So it’s really in our best interests to abandon you to your fate, now we realize that this means that your species will face the possibility of extinction because of this, but that is a risk we are willing to take”
Again, the difference is subtle, but important.
The ends don't justify the means, though. The difference isn't important when the outcome of "Species mostly wiped out at the hands of those in charge, and homeworld wrecked for generations to come" is the same.
After all, to say that they're different is to fall right into the trap that was set, just like Gress did.
Nah, the thing is the difference is *not* important! That's the problem. You need to remember that for both sides the danger they were fighting is 100% real.
Also, the other guy is incorrect tracking the Jaslip to the Thafki.
They track *to the Krakotl*.
Remember the very start of the federation, when there were just three members in it. When was the Shadow Caste born? In Nishtal. When they did the whole Cure thing on the Krakotl and, according to Maronis, that was when their population thought they were going too far.
So what did they do? The people in charge retreated into the shadows, creating the Shadow Caste to keep safe the people that quite clearly weren't willing to be kept safe.
The whole Consortium is just like the Federation of those days. Facing a terrible existential threat, they start taking worse and worse measures until at some point- They need to face the consequences of their draconian measures. And what do they do?
The Federation became what they did, going for absolute control in the shadows.
What will the Consortium do? We don't know yet, that's what this story is about.
\#2 there seems plausible. I mean, that's basically the story of America and NATO since the fall of the Soviet Union, but keeping Russia as the bogeyman while pushing ever farther eastward so they could keep selling more weapons, and keep the tension up. But I also think that NATO should have put up a big "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner, thrown a party, and then turned out the lights after their mission was, y'know, accomplished, back in 1992. So I might be kinda biased. 🤣
> but keeping Russia as the bogeyman while pushing ever farther eastward so they could keep selling more weapons, and keep the tension up
Bruh, Russia is trying to annex an eastern European country **right now.** NATO does nothing to "push" eastward, eastern European states keep *asking* to join: Turns out a lot of Russia's neighbors have been treated really badly by Russia in the not-so-distant past and came to the west for help with that.
> Bruh, Russia is trying to annex an eastern European country **right now.**
Oh my gods, really?! I hadn't heard anything about that!
> NATO does nothing to "push" eastward, eastern European states keep *asking* to join: Turns out a lot of Russia's neighbors have been treated really badly by Russia in the not-so-distant past and came to the west for help with that.
And NATO should have said "No", just like it agreed with Russia to do. Selling them weapons? Helping them train? Fine. Letting them join our coalition of proxies right on the Russian border? Hell no. Presumably you've heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and are therefore aware of the fact that historically *we've* taken issue with such things. Now picture Mexico joining a military alliance with Russia and think about how well that would go over.
Europe is not our circus, and not our monkeys. During the Cold War? Fine. Necessary evil, I suppose. Once we **won** that? Time for the USA to go back to minding its own business, and not everyone else's.
Yeah, I was thinking that the scout ships are going to probably get more than a particle beam to the face since I’m certain that the consortium is going to be confused when they see a squadron of unknown vessels looking around and may be more inclined to ask questions. (Remember, they fired on the Skivkit ships without warning because they recognized them as being a federation ship)
The Bissems will be the ones to connect the Consortium and the Coalition, bringing peace to the galaxy. I can feel it.
But that's just a theory. A made up 2 minutes ago theory!
They might shoot at sight
unless A Human like ship with the UN logo finds them first, then Tellus is going to have some problems,
Wonder where the rest of the Arks went. Surely eventually, Humanity is going to fight itself oncemore..
and The rest shall Submit
Oh boy, the plots converge! Imagine the look on the humans’ faces when they realized they’re fighting each other! Imagine the emotional destruction of realizing that earth survived, that all that toil underground and disrespect at the hands of the Krev was for nothing, that they could have gone home.
Consortium ships: "The consortium declares total war against the federation for crimes against sapience!"
SC ships: "You too huh? Here's their homeworld, they're already in prison but feel free to go and tell them you win and rub it in a bit."
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there's a dedicated orbital station with a direct broadcast down to a hardened display system on the surface just for people to show up and go NEENER NEENER.
I think we met that now-elderly Zurulian in NoP1!
Things are getting interesting... but it seems clear that the Federation, the Shield, and the SC all "won" when the Sivkits went their own way.
Erin appeared in several of Meier's chapters as an aide. She was one of the people behind the odyssey project and afterwards got promoted to a position overseeing alien relations.
Given humanity's many ties with aliens now, it makes sense that she would be a candidate for secretary-general
Tassi is smarter than me because it took her pointing it out for me to realize the obvious rebuttal to the Federation claims of the Sivkit losing their homeworld. Like, oh sure, they forgot where it is so no Sivkit's really sure. Why don't *you* know, oh advanced and wise collection of enlightened peoples? Were they space-faring and making all sorts of colonies by the time you found them?
Excellent memory friend!
So, ravaged their home world and went nomadic to the point that their origins were lost to history? But you’re right, that requires that they acquired FTL without the Federation’s help and indications are that they were uplifts.
> I wonder if aliens did something to them too?
Once again Tassi shows good instincts. The Consortium chose to shoot first entirely because they knew exactly how a Federation species would react to their existence.
I think that this isn’t going to go into a war between the SC and the Consortium. I think that this is going to cause a CIVIL WAR instead, inside the consortium. There’s already massive tensions within it, with different species dominating others and bad blood going back generations.
Imagine being a Jaslip and seeing the KC treat ex-Feddies better than your own people. Imagine learning that the genocide was not only overly self-protective but also completely unnecessary.
On a funnier note: imagine being a Jaslip and learning about mythical kitsune from the Terran humans (IIRC, the ark is mostly from America, right?). ~~Or finding Renamon fanart.~~
To be fair they were civilian craft with civilian shields, not that impressive against military craft, not like it would matter to particle beams they cut through like butter regardless, though I believe humanity in hand with Yotul already created shields or technology to counter it.
And ships that are decades old too. The Sivkits split a long time ago, and by the sound of it have remained relatively primitive. Their ships are likely all of prewar Federation designs and make, and both the SC and KC have entire fleets purpose built to destroy prewar Fed craft.
Civilian craft from a race that had previously been intentionally hobbled technologically and has since spent their time in an isolationist peace. The Krev basically shot up a rowboat and risked a few carrier groups rolling up in response.
Its What happened in a nation Rp of mine, some idiotic player shot at my exploration craft!...
I obviously did not spare him..
But let us see what happens here
Krev are just built different, also we don’t have an exact ship size to bounce off of here, though they were carrying hundreds of thousands so possibly very sizable for Fed standards that is. I’m sure the SC since the war has since then surpassed these standards.
Hey Chauson is still around. I had an impression he was in his mid-life back in NOP1. Love that pookie bear.
But moreover, _come on!_ sivkit brainrot is terminal.
Even though the Sivkits have improper education they are not that stupid. They believe that humanity is a force that cannot stand competition. Hence, informing the SC about the arrival of a potential competitor is a very intelligent move. Why fight if you can dump this job on someone else? If they were not behaving so obviously racist, they could have appeared as sassy to those uninformed about the state of Sivkit affairs. Calling this interaction diplomacy is a bit of a stretch, though. Having Loxsel around is gonna be hell of a trip.
Humans on that military base: "Fine, you wanna be racist, we'll be racist right back. You're getting scritches whether you want it or not, space rabbit."
The racist space rabbit slowly getting addicted to scritches through the pavlovian training of "say something racist to the humans, get scritches in return"
Governor Hathoway: giving the orders to fire on unarmed, fully compliant, civilian targets.
UN: That's a violation of the Geneva convention, and since the arkship was commissioned by us means that "Yes governor, we do have jurisdiction to place you under arrest for war crimes."
General Radai: Just gonna slip on out of here before-
UN: Due to the Jaslip government formally seceeding from the KC to join the SC, we have to take you into custody until such time as we have ascertained your level of involvement with the destruction of their homeworld. Thank you for your cooperation.
Krev Leader: Now listen here, you can't just barge in here and-
UN: Thank you for turning yourself over to our custody, to await trial. The Jaslip list of people involved with the destruction of Esquo was quite thorough.
No. The Paltan Ambassidor is one of the Paltans kept in cryogenic stasis by the Farsul, and was rescued when the U.N. raided the Chronicle facility during the war. He's spent most of those centuries frozen in some laboratory.
>Behold, Sapient Coalition—predators *worse* than the m-masters you serve.
\**tilt*\* I have no compasion for him. The only reason I agree to intervene is because we can't let massacres be perpetrated like this. Otherwise, let the Sivkits, or at least this "diplomat", rot in their own shit... right, space locusts, we need to put down the Sivkits at soon at possible, we're just way too nice to do it without direct provocation.
>*Whoever’s territory the Sivkits encroached on, they were shooting first and asking questions later.*
On reflection, and from the Coalition's point of view only, I can't blame an unknown alien species for being aggressively isolationist, as is seems to be the case today. It's wrong, but everyone lacks of information and perhaps it's all a misunderstanding that can be resolved diplomatically. Sadly, we know that the problem is both simpler and more complex.
A little taste of the real politics in the Coalition, it looks good, everyone now seems quite at ease with humans.
Very interesting to see that the Venlil have decided to rename themselves Skalgans. I think Venlil was really their race name at first, but after that name was defiled by the Federation I can understand their desire to make a clean sweep of this past and name themselves in honor of the recovered name of their "World of Death".
It's good to see that the diplomatic option was seized immediately, rather than a military stampede as the Sivkits expect and beg (albeit with some reasonable guarantees). Well, the two arcs are finally starting to connect, now there's still a whole galaxy of possibilities as to how this will go and could get out of hand.
I would not be so fast on judging the Sivkits, they just got reintroduced and there haven't been much stuff about them, so I would hold back calling for "puting them down", there is definitely more than meet the eye here, so I wouldn't be so fast in judging them, after all the sivktis always run away from the problems they find, like they did on NoP1 so there might be a reason as to why instead of just running away they decided to go back and ask for help from the SC
My comment about "put down" the Sivkits is a more general thing about all their space locusts behavior, not just today. I'm on a metronome between "leave them alone" and "solve what will inevitably be a problem one day". I admit I'm a bit quick to judge them on the basis of this single diplomat, but hey, that diplomat getting on my nerves very hard.
The Sivkits are coming from old information, remember that arxur liked to be called cruelty and shit like that, so the sivktis took what they knew would make an betterment arxur happy and applied to the humans, because the reality is, if they did that to a betterment arxur there was an actual good chance that they would succeed in both hyping up the arxur pride and also giving them an reason to fight (lost potential prey), the sivkit performance here is not one born out of just fear and federation dogma, but outright realpolitik and manipulation... They just didn't know, humans aren't like that, and neither are the Arxur now
edit:typo
It would work on Dominion Arxur, true.
It’s also true that their last contact with humans has us not presenting ourselves as anything like Dominion Arxur
I've also felt like their idea to hype up the humans was too clever for someone who supposedly has a messed up education system. The Sivkits lack in the intelligence services department but are able to construct good, and by good I mean pervasive, arguments with the old information they have. Because of this interaction, I think that the Sivkits could get away with manipu.ating the Axur back in the day when the Betterment was still a thing. They are definitely not 'idiots' in the sense that they can process information and be smart with how they want to achieve things. They are idiots because they ran away and refused to uncure but hey... humans can be idiots too. So, things do not look that bad for the Sivkits.
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* [The Nature of Predators 2-21](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bltnkb/the_nature_of_predators_221/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-20](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bjekkf/the_nature_of_predators_220/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-19](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bg7qak/the_nature_of_predators_219/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-18](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bdsrab/the_nature_of_predators_218/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-17](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1bajuli/the_nature_of_predators_217/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-16](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b82af0/the_nature_of_predators_216/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-15](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b4qliu/the_nature_of_predators_215/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-14](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1b28bf7/the_nature_of_predators_214/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-13](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1aywvw1/the_nature_of_predators_213/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-12](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1awekyb/the_nature_of_predators_212/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-11](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1at46ck/the_nature_of_predators_211/)
* [The Nature of Predators 2-10](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1aqp8ow/the_nature_of_predators_210/)
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It’d be interesting if Loxsel’s theater kid energy was entirely something he was doing on purpose. I think it’d be funny if that’s just how Sivkit talked but it’d make some character depth if he was putting on a performance.
Granted, it still would be infuriating if he thought the “call them vicious bloodthirsty killers” thing would’ve been anywhere near endearing. I think characters putting on masks is fun but I can’t really see a benefit to intentionally making yourself a parody of the average Federation citizen
I love how awkward that conversation was, with the Sivkit acting like we were going to eat them and we were still savage predators. Zalk’s reaction was the best.
Hilarious stuff. Kind of sad too though. Seems like the Sikvits haven't made much progress, unfortunately
Isolationism tends to not do wonders for one's understanding of their neighbors, after all.
Chinese history in a nutshell.
As a history nerd, I loved that comment
Japanese as well
Yeah, isolationism doesn't seem to be great at curing xenophobia.
Examples: farsul, kolshians, sivkit, literally the entire consortium with the Federation and our prisons
Can't wait to see how incredibly well-adjusted the Arxur are after their 20LY isolation bubble experience.
Oh, that Sivkit absolutely has no absolutely no freedom of thought
Or any thought at all
Sivkit education is probably still not far from federation levels.
>The Paltan representative, Tlev, raised an amber paw and widened his already massive eyes. In my sole interaction with him, he’d claimed to have been born centuries ago; Yay! At least one of the popsicles succeeded in adapting to awakening in a new world.
Tlev that is the Paltan from the patreon story "the farsul abductee"!
Ahhhhh I just thought they were an exceptionally long lived race. That makes sense!
I took him being crazy at face value lol
"go do the predator thing" LMAO
I MISSED THAT LOL
“Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!”
Part 30! The Bissems have gotten a trial run with the Sapient Coalition, and find a mundane meeting about Venlil health studies interrupted by a maniacal Sivkit, with incoherent rambling claiming to have been attacked. Despite Loxsel’s melodramatics, the picture painted by his video leads the SC to investigate, and assess the threat to border states like the Paltans. The Krev Consortium’s attack doesn’t reflect well on them to the unwitting SC. What do you think of the Sivkit ambassador, and the wider implications for the state of the Grand Herd? What do you think of our peek at the affairs and state of the Sapient Coalition? As always, thank you for reading!
The SC seems to be conducting itself well, particularly compared to what a mess most diplomacy had been in NoP 1. It's good to see everyone's, more or less, adjusted. It's an excellent sign that a bunch of Coalition members laughed at the claims of humans being violent. It sounds like things are running more or less smoothly... at least out in the open. Behind the scenes is a different story as demonstrated by the Yotul and who knows how many others. The proposed course of action seems reasonable: take in refugees, assess the threat, but be clear it's not your jurisdiction. Honestly I think that was handled about as well as it could have been given that they weren't briefed on what the Sivkit wanted to talk about and only enough information was shared to confirm the attack. Which does make me wonder if the Sivkit have more information they *didn't* want to share, deciding that a 'competing' predator would be enough for the SC to act. I suspect the real problem is going to start with this scouting mission: either because of the 'shoot first' tactics of the Consortium (if that's now their standard operating procedure unlike when they met the humans) or potentially because of the discovery of humans. It's entirely possible the SC spots something that gives away there are humans on that planet. All it would take is one of their mega structures clearly being a scaled up design of something unique to human culture or history. But overall right now I think things are fine between the two factions, I just don't think it will stay that way because then what's the story?
"Is that the fucking statue of liberty?"
"How tall is that thing? Why does her torch reach fucking *space*?"
Hell, you don't even need a scaled up monument. If you can get a stealth ship close enough to eavesdrop on signals, you'd pick up broadcasts in Terran Standard (Or whatever the language name is) and video feeds with humans.
English. It is the most widely known language in the world. The aliens would probably refer to it as Terran standard tho.
In fairness Mandarin is close, but either would be a dead give away.
English is lingua franca for most of the Earth right now. I think looking at it as a second language is more relevant than primary.
It's only close because I'm taking non-native speakers into account. From what I found Mandarine has about 1.1billion speakers with 929million being native speakers. English has 1.4billion speakers but most of them are as a second language with only 362million being native speakers. So on the one hand it has 300million more total speakers but in native speakers it's behind by ~550million, more than the total number of native English speakers. Honestly if China wasn't so set on being an Authoritarian dictatorship hostile to the West and so antagonistic to their neighbors they'd have a decent shot of encroaching on English's default status as lingua franca. And that all could happen in some far off future. A big part of the reason English is so popular is because of one empire and then another using it and the fact that the world's largest economy uses it. If America declines in wealth and influence it is entirely possible for a country like China to spread it's influence and take over a lot of the global economy, which would incentivize using it. We're also looking at a future where real time computer translation is getting better and better, so it's possible the popularity of learning second languages will actually decline as it becomes less necessary. But yeah if things keep going as they are it would probably be mostly, if not entirely, English. It's just fun to break down other potential outcomes.
I'd say non-native is more important, since these are people that learned the language for a reason. It's also simpler since it's a bit less ambiguous when written.
Anti China bot 💀🙏
Bro just slobbing on American “democracy” meat rn 💀🙏
Also consider the fact that chinese is so vastly different from everything that isn't SEA. It is easy to learn.
“ It sounds like things are running more or less smoothly... at least out in the open. Behind the scenes is a different story as demonstrated by the Yotul and who knows how many others.” What are you talking about? All we’ve seen is that different members have different ideas and opinions on how the SC should conduct itself, and have their own agendas outside of (but not necessarily in opposition to) the larger SC. That’s just normal behavior of a functioning and healthy democracy; It’s no different than how American Congress is divided up between democrats and republicans, and a slew of minor 3rd parties. it’s when everyone is in perfect lock-step with everyone all the time that you should be worried about rampant corruption.
The Yotul are literally blackmailing other members and collaborating with an outside group talking about starting a war with the SC, what are **you** talking about? Blackmail certainly makes it's way into politics but it's illegal and a form of corruption and collaborating with someone who want's to go to war with your allies, going so far as to break the rules and blackmail potential members on their behalf, is *far* from 'the normal behavior of a democracy'. It's not that the Yotul disagree. It's that they're corrupt, blackmailing, traitors.
To be fair, all they want is to get a roadmap to lift the blockade on the arxur. Which is all the arxur ask for, they're just getting frustrated.
They weren't just talking about the blockade though. They literally tried to bribe and blackmail the Bissem into backing the Axur joining the coalition. That's a whole other thing. And it's not just 'wanting a roadmap', it's *demanding* one under threat of war. It's the difference between a Senator wanting a roadmap to when their state will receiving funding for something vs threatening to take it by force with their national guard if they don't get their way.
I feel like we've read that chapter from different realities They have a lot of social tension pent up and nobody is willing to so much as talk to them. Societal 180° shifts don't happen smooth, like , at all (gestures at Eastern Europe IRL) . There's probably a significant faction of the arxur who want to go back to the old ways. In my opinion it wasn't so much of a "open up or we will declare war" as "please let us out or we're literally going to explode and take a chunk out of you in the process" And regarding the blackmail I'm pretty sure that Bissems initially accused them of trying to do that but he assured them that it was rather not the point. In the end everyone left that meeting happier than before.
What Onso did either classifies as blackmail or extortion depending on how you look at it. The Yotul made a big fuss about blocking the Bissem then used that as leverage to *force* them to have that meeting. The Bissem *wanted to leave* when they heard an Axur was there and Onso used the threat of their being blocked to *make them* have the meeting anyways. >"If you want my help, you need to at least have a sit-down with Kaisal." It was so transparent I'm kind of shocked people don't get it. It's some "that's a nice store, would be a shame if something were to happen to it" shit. He's offering to 'help' with a problem he admitted the Yotul deliberately created as a *political tool* despite actually wanting the opposite. >“I’ve taken the liberty of strengthening our military to a respectable fleet size once more. We don’t want trouble, but let’s just say we’re done with quarantine. It’d be better for everyone if that was as friends. Let us go about our business with those who are ready to move on.” It is *literally* a case of open up or we'll declare war. He's saying they won't 'fire the first shots' but they *will* breach the blockade, which *will* likely end in them being fired upon. It's like saying "I won't declare war, I'll just march my troops into your territory", it's functionally the same thing. I get the impression you're right, we did read that chapter from two wildly different perspectives. I can't even fathom someone thinking that was a *friendly* exchange with aliens that were not at all going to initiate hostilities with the SC and that it was really just a great time all around.
Not gonna lie, this still meets my expectations of politics and politicians.
I'm on your side. The Yotul have become untrustworthy and self centered. I'm liking them less and less with each appearance.
It's a shame because after the collective trauma they suffered I do think they *believe* they're doing what's right. Hell they might even think, in a twisted sort of way, they're doing humanity a *favor* by pushing the limits on the acceptance of 'predators' to the maximum. But they're doing the wrong things in an 'ends justifies the means' kind of way that I don't think is going to work out for them. In other words I don't think it's so much the Yotul being *malicious* as it is them thinking they need to be the assholes here for the 'greater good'.
Which is most of the time of them being corrupt
The consortium identified the ships as sivkit by their design. UN ships might resemble older UN designs from the data the humans provided, giving them pause.
True, although I doubt modern UN ships look anything like what they had before the colonists left and the SC has no reason to use old designs. The best shot would be something retrofitted that was too costly to just scrap for better tech, but they really have every reason to bring their latest and best given the potential scale of the threat here.
I don't think the design principles would change that much. Humanity was already interplanetary by first contact, the major upgrades would just be weapons, shields, and FTL drives. There wouldn't be major changes to things like thruster arrangement or bridge location because of those.
The Sivkit ambassador tells a very disheartening tale of how most of the former members of the Herbivore Federation are so absolutely conditioned into hysterical fear, that only a focused occupation and reeducation could possibly counter generations of Federation Brainwashing. The Sivkit Grand Herd probably lost an estimate of at least 15% of their total assets on that first strike, and seeing as how they still suffer from Federation Conditioning, they’re probably so demoralized that an estimated 2% more will be lost from “Stampede related injuries”. The Coalition’s Central Government seems to work as intended, but everything operating OUTSIDE of it, tells a far different story. The UN of the SC does it’s job, but the individual international politics are where everything falls apart
Wait a minute... UN... SC... *SP put a fucken hALO REFERE-*
Poor fellow is way out of his depth... Also a clear indicator of what the Federation did to people for the Bissems. If Loxsel is the calmest and/or bravest ambassador they could come up with, I don't think the Grand Herd is in a much better state than they were when they cut off contact, and now they've lost a bunch of ships and people...
> What do you think of the Sivkit ambassador Natural-born theater student.
Almost first!
Almost second!
Almost 4345...
Almost 1 Googolplex NOOOOO SEND HELP, THERE IS TOO MUCH COLD, NOTHING IN SIGHT, PLEASE HELP, I CAN FEEL MY TIMELOCK FAILING
I'm hoping someone listens to Tassi, or thinks about the Tseia (HEY DUSTIN!) and points out that while there were definitely hundreds of thousands killed, it may not have been "for no reason". In the final analysis, it may end up being considered a *poor* reason, but "trying to avoid being outed to the genocidal psychopaths the next galactic spur over" is pretty darn rational. "But why didn't you answer their hails?" "And let people who were from the Federation that we thought still existed see that there were a bunch of predators out here, and maybe get word back to the folks who apparently get off on incinerating whole planets if they have predators on them? Gosh, I can't *imagine* why we didn't go that route." My position: These deaths suck, but they're still part of the legacy of the Federation's centuries long reign of terror. I mean, sure, that hippo lumbering towards you *might* want to play games, but if all you know about hippos is that they're terrifying murder beasts, you might shoot first and not bother asking questions. Yeah, as an analogy it has a number of flaws, but the point still comes through, I think.
I think the peek at relations ex-Federation members have with the Sapient Coalition is much more interesting than the peek at the affairs and state of the Sapient Coalition itself. The fact that the Sivkit were already broadcasting their meeting with the unidentified Consortium ships on FTL channels undid the whole reason to destroy them in the first place. This reinforces my position that the Krev Consortium should have taken the Sivkit fleet as prisoners. Sure the training crews weren't ready to board ships with tens of thousands of crew and passengers; but they didn't have to. They had the ability close within range of their anti-warp technology, disable the ships' weapons and broadcasting arrays and force them into orbit for a nice orderly evacuation and debriefing with additional Consortium reinforcements.
Welp. They did it. Here we go into another pointless war!
War is never pointless if you WIN! -Me, just now!
\- Redmond and/or Blutarch Mann
Are they related to man co?
Yes.
Not if it is a pyrrhic victory.
it feels like we might be heading that way, but at the same time I can't see how that comes about without some fairly severe idiot-ball-holding (or some in-story externalities we haven't seen yet that completely prevent communication). The SC would have to attempt to make contact with the Consortium as a very early part of their investigation - given how well-shielded and concealed most KC worlds are, they'll probably get weird traces of stuff plus spotting Tellus, which should lead to them sending messages that way, which should in turn lead to one or both sides pretty much immediately figuring out that the Federation is already mostly dismantled, Earth is fine actually, and that the Dandelion fleets existed and one of them ended up out past Sivkit space. The SC don't have much reason to go to war, and the KC only do if they shut out absolutely 100% of all incoming information and just execute an all-out attack on the "Federation" with their eyes closed. There's no way they could miss the existence of the SC and the survival of Earth and humanity during any sort of combat or intelligence gathering. Maybe if they realise they've been spotted, launch the drone fleet on "RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE" mode and lock down all their worlds? Do absolutely no in-person fighting or observation whatsoever and somehow block out all incoming attempts at comms or diplomacy while also stopping any random individuals in their entire alliance from looking at who they're killing and realising it's not the Feds? Are the humans on Tellus going to be Jaslip 2.0 when the Krev try to "save" them in an emergency relocation?
I think one of two things will happen. 1) The Consortium sees scouts from "Federation" space coming their way and assume they've been found, so they fully deploy their military forces in order to eliminate the "Federation". By the time anyone notices they're fighting Humans among the "Federation" species, either their technological edge has already led to too many casualties on the SC side for the SC to just let it go, or the SC is aware of what the Consortium did to the Jaslips and is out to dismantle another seemingly-genocidal regime. 2) The Krev realize quickly that the Federation is gone, but immediately silo that information, clamp down 1984-style on all information in the Consortium, and persue the war regardless because without a common enemy keeping everyone afraid there's nothing holding the Consortium together; and they stand to lose their position of leadership and all of the privelege that comes with it.
That 2nd scenario is probably not going to happen since it sounds too much like a rehash of what the Federation itself did (made the Aruxur the boogeymen of the Galaxy to validate their own existence and actions). Might I suggest some scenarios: 1: the misunderstanding with the consortium is resolved peacefully (it’s not like either wants a war, nor are they diametrically opposed ideologically so why not?) combined with Aruxur relations improving, this causes Federation remnants to flip out, thinking they are being surrounded on all sides by the Aruxur Dominion and dominion clones, and begin a second war. 2: this ends up becoming a Cold War between the SC and consortium, maybe THIS situation is resolved without much bloodshed, but tensions continue to mount, after all how do we know that their claims that the federation are gone are, in fact, true? They might be “cured” humans working FOR the feds! Like the dark forest scenario or actual Cold War how can you be so trusting when total extinction is a possibility if you’re wrong?
I actually could see the second scenario you said is probably not gonna happen, happening. The Consortium has basically become the very thing they tried to hide from in the Federation: A group of top-down authority states that are more than willing to hurt member states and attack complete strangers for the sake of perceived safety. the Jaslips and the Thafki are in similar boats, after all.
Are the jaslips and thafki in the same boat though? Really? Because I feel there’s a subtle, but important difference between: “Look, there’s a bunch of genuine psychos that’ll exterminate us all, or worse, if they find us and frankly I am not willing to risk the extinction of both our species because you want to be stubborn, and if that means dragging you off kicking and screaming and then nuke the rest to cover up all evidence then so be it!” And: “Well we COULD send our secret fleet to dispatch the cannibal fascists besieging your planet, but then we’d also show our hand that these monsters are no actual threat and we’d end up losing our political leverage over the other cowed idiots. So it’s really in our best interests to abandon you to your fate, now we realize that this means that your species will face the possibility of extinction because of this, but that is a risk we are willing to take” Again, the difference is subtle, but important.
The ends don't justify the means, though. The difference isn't important when the outcome of "Species mostly wiped out at the hands of those in charge, and homeworld wrecked for generations to come" is the same. After all, to say that they're different is to fall right into the trap that was set, just like Gress did.
Agree to disagree. I believe that in this instance “context is king”. But you are free to disagree
Nah, the thing is the difference is *not* important! That's the problem. You need to remember that for both sides the danger they were fighting is 100% real. Also, the other guy is incorrect tracking the Jaslip to the Thafki. They track *to the Krakotl*. Remember the very start of the federation, when there were just three members in it. When was the Shadow Caste born? In Nishtal. When they did the whole Cure thing on the Krakotl and, according to Maronis, that was when their population thought they were going too far. So what did they do? The people in charge retreated into the shadows, creating the Shadow Caste to keep safe the people that quite clearly weren't willing to be kept safe. The whole Consortium is just like the Federation of those days. Facing a terrible existential threat, they start taking worse and worse measures until at some point- They need to face the consequences of their draconian measures. And what do they do? The Federation became what they did, going for absolute control in the shadows. What will the Consortium do? We don't know yet, that's what this story is about.
\#2 there seems plausible. I mean, that's basically the story of America and NATO since the fall of the Soviet Union, but keeping Russia as the bogeyman while pushing ever farther eastward so they could keep selling more weapons, and keep the tension up. But I also think that NATO should have put up a big "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner, thrown a party, and then turned out the lights after their mission was, y'know, accomplished, back in 1992. So I might be kinda biased. 🤣
> but keeping Russia as the bogeyman while pushing ever farther eastward so they could keep selling more weapons, and keep the tension up Bruh, Russia is trying to annex an eastern European country **right now.** NATO does nothing to "push" eastward, eastern European states keep *asking* to join: Turns out a lot of Russia's neighbors have been treated really badly by Russia in the not-so-distant past and came to the west for help with that.
> Bruh, Russia is trying to annex an eastern European country **right now.** Oh my gods, really?! I hadn't heard anything about that! > NATO does nothing to "push" eastward, eastern European states keep *asking* to join: Turns out a lot of Russia's neighbors have been treated really badly by Russia in the not-so-distant past and came to the west for help with that. And NATO should have said "No", just like it agreed with Russia to do. Selling them weapons? Helping them train? Fine. Letting them join our coalition of proxies right on the Russian border? Hell no. Presumably you've heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and are therefore aware of the fact that historically *we've* taken issue with such things. Now picture Mexico joining a military alliance with Russia and think about how well that would go over. Europe is not our circus, and not our monkeys. During the Cold War? Fine. Necessary evil, I suppose. Once we **won** that? Time for the USA to go back to minding its own business, and not everyone else's.
Don’t fk with Russia either but don’t throw stones from your glass house either, wasn’t the entire NATO leadership nazis???
Yeah, I was thinking that the scout ships are going to probably get more than a particle beam to the face since I’m certain that the consortium is going to be confused when they see a squadron of unknown vessels looking around and may be more inclined to ask questions. (Remember, they fired on the Skivkit ships without warning because they recognized them as being a federation ship)
I can see Jaslip 2.0 situation coming up. For what they're worth, the Coalition seems pretty slimy.
You have points but this is NoP, Possibly the humanity of the consortium feels betrayed
War, war never changes.
It’s humanity, what did you expect?
The economy will benefit at least.
The Bissems will be the ones to connect the Consortium and the Coalition, bringing peace to the galaxy. I can feel it. But that's just a theory. A made up 2 minutes ago theory!
I hope so
The fact that the only views we get are from the Bissem and arc ship Humans indicates that they will be at the center of this story.
Schizo sivkits. NOP is peak once again
skibidi sivkits
Dip your fingers in glue and let it dry
I TOLD YOU! This was what I was afraid of, and I doubt the consortium will trust anyone or anything coming from former federation space
They might shoot at sight unless A Human like ship with the UN logo finds them first, then Tellus is going to have some problems, Wonder where the rest of the Arks went. Surely eventually, Humanity is going to fight itself oncemore.. and The rest shall Submit
Imagine if they all landed in different hidden societies from the federation?
That would be Fun
Giant war against everyone
"he’d claimed to have been born centuries ago" Sweet! He's from the before times.
Tlev! A paltan rescued from the archives! Good friends with a human rescued alongside him.
Oh boy, the plots converge! Imagine the look on the humans’ faces when they realized they’re fighting each other! Imagine the emotional destruction of realizing that earth survived, that all that toil underground and disrespect at the hands of the Krev was for nothing, that they could have gone home.
Meh fighting each other is normal
It is, but they think they are fighting aliens.
Nowadays maybe, but in a time of peace under the world gov UN, it would be an upset
Well, the ark departed not that long after the satellite wars.
Cue WW1-esque scene where both last men from each faction face to face and take off their gas masks. (You know that one scene)
Or Battle of Umbara from TCW.
Consortium ships: "The consortium declares total war against the federation for crimes against sapience!" SC ships: "You too huh? Here's their homeworld, they're already in prison but feel free to go and tell them you win and rub it in a bit."
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there's a dedicated orbital station with a direct broadcast down to a hardened display system on the surface just for people to show up and go NEENER NEENER.
I think we met that now-elderly Zurulian in NoP1! Things are getting interesting... but it seems clear that the Federation, the Shield, and the SC all "won" when the Sivkits went their own way.
Yes, he's the one that approached Noah in Aafa.
I believe that we also met the current sec-gen in NoP1. Erin Kuemper, formerly of SETI.
Huh, I don't remember that name to be honest, when did they show up?
Erin appeared in several of Meier's chapters as an aide. She was one of the people behind the odyssey project and afterwards got promoted to a position overseeing alien relations. Given humanity's many ties with aliens now, it makes sense that she would be a candidate for secretary-general
Huh, I see.
Chauson? Yeah, I was happy to see him show up again. He's been working with humans for a very long time now
Tassi is smarter than me because it took her pointing it out for me to realize the obvious rebuttal to the Federation claims of the Sivkit losing their homeworld. Like, oh sure, they forgot where it is so no Sivkit's really sure. Why don't *you* know, oh advanced and wise collection of enlightened peoples? Were they space-faring and making all sorts of colonies by the time you found them?
I always assumed “lost” meant destroyed. The sivkits are feared by the Consortium for how they devour planets.
Well Tunsas, their governing/“main” world, was a candidate for being their homeworld. It’s just that no one was sure it actually was.
Excellent memory friend! So, ravaged their home world and went nomadic to the point that their origins were lost to history? But you’re right, that requires that they acquired FTL without the Federation’s help and indications are that they were uplifts.
A war is about to start because a stupid ostrich didn't wanna accept hails.
The humans were all encouraging the Resket too though... good job everyone!
I think he did want to accept the hail but there was a lot of pressure on him to shoot first and not risk information about humanity getting out.
> I wonder if aliens did something to them too? Once again Tassi shows good instincts. The Consortium chose to shoot first entirely because they knew exactly how a Federation species would react to their existence.
I think that this isn’t going to go into a war between the SC and the Consortium. I think that this is going to cause a CIVIL WAR instead, inside the consortium. There’s already massive tensions within it, with different species dominating others and bad blood going back generations.
Imagine being a Jaslip and seeing the KC treat ex-Feddies better than your own people. Imagine learning that the genocide was not only overly self-protective but also completely unnecessary. On a funnier note: imagine being a Jaslip and learning about mythical kitsune from the Terran humans (IIRC, the ark is mostly from America, right?). ~~Or finding Renamon fanart.~~
It could cause all of that, like Humanity seceding setting of a civil war due to the SC
Nah I think it’s more likely that the jaslips secede to try and join the SC
And those were just scouting ships right? Imagine the firepower of a full on battleship!
To be fair they were civilian craft with civilian shields, not that impressive against military craft, not like it would matter to particle beams they cut through like butter regardless, though I believe humanity in hand with Yotul already created shields or technology to counter it.
And ships that are decades old too. The Sivkits split a long time ago, and by the sound of it have remained relatively primitive. Their ships are likely all of prewar Federation designs and make, and both the SC and KC have entire fleets purpose built to destroy prewar Fed craft.
The thing is that they have developed FTL comms.
FTL comms are Fed tech.
Civilian craft from a race that had previously been intentionally hobbled technologically and has since spent their time in an isolationist peace. The Krev basically shot up a rowboat and risked a few carrier groups rolling up in response.
At minimum it's a submarine appearing out of the depths, pumping deck and AA gun rounds into a fleet of fishing boats, then diving again.
Good analogy for this honestly
Yep. No idea where it came from, could do precisely nothing to stop it, and no idea where it went afterwards.
Its What happened in a nation Rp of mine, some idiotic player shot at my exploration craft!... I obviously did not spare him.. But let us see what happens here
Probably, but it was like a one shot, you’d assume it’d take a few.
Krev are just built different, also we don’t have an exact ship size to bounce off of here, though they were carrying hundreds of thousands so possibly very sizable for Fed standards that is. I’m sure the SC since the war has since then surpassed these standards.
Yep, Sivkit dislike is still there
If the Consortium destroys the scout ships as well... I hope they identify the UN logo on the resulting debris.
Hey Chauson is still around. I had an impression he was in his mid-life back in NOP1. Love that pookie bear. But moreover, _come on!_ sivkit brainrot is terminal.
*A lot like the Tseia with Alsh. I wonder if aliens did something to them too?* Don't keep that speculation to yourself for too long, Tassi
We want in *Tassi*
Definitely not made up spoilers: The way Loxel talks is actually a result of the Sivkits reinstating their old curriculums
To be fair, his speech did start to feel more fancy as the conversation went on
Even though the Sivkits have improper education they are not that stupid. They believe that humanity is a force that cannot stand competition. Hence, informing the SC about the arrival of a potential competitor is a very intelligent move. Why fight if you can dump this job on someone else? If they were not behaving so obviously racist, they could have appeared as sassy to those uninformed about the state of Sivkit affairs. Calling this interaction diplomacy is a bit of a stretch, though. Having Loxsel around is gonna be hell of a trip.
Humans on that military base: "Fine, you wanna be racist, we'll be racist right back. You're getting scritches whether you want it or not, space rabbit."
The racist space rabbit slowly getting addicted to scritches through the pavlovian training of "say something racist to the humans, get scritches in return"
I'm thinking the conflict will escalate up to a SC siege of Tellus, where some humans will be able to speak to other humans on the planet
Well, looks like we can strike out finding human remains in the Sivkit wreckage.
> Secretary-General Kuemper Wait... is Erin in charge now?
Quite a blast from the past for the SC
Hopefully! This leads to Taylor getting PTSD treatment, that or dying from shock when he sees Humans leading a giant "federation" scouting force
This is what I've been waiting for the entire series.
>Hopefully, there could be a peaceful resolution as a result of this scouting expedition lol. lmao, even.
Congrats Taylor you are official a war criminal now
Taylor Truncheon Trench strikes again!
Governor Hathoway: giving the orders to fire on unarmed, fully compliant, civilian targets. UN: That's a violation of the Geneva convention, and since the arkship was commissioned by us means that "Yes governor, we do have jurisdiction to place you under arrest for war crimes." General Radai: Just gonna slip on out of here before- UN: Due to the Jaslip government formally seceeding from the KC to join the SC, we have to take you into custody until such time as we have ascertained your level of involvement with the destruction of their homeworld. Thank you for your cooperation. Krev Leader: Now listen here, you can't just barge in here and- UN: Thank you for turning yourself over to our custody, to await trial. The Jaslip list of people involved with the destruction of Esquo was quite thorough.
"Avenge the wasted cutlets" Damn, that is some twisted thinking to refer to your own murdered people as wasted food.
And so it begins. Guaranteed the SC and the Consortium is gonna have atleast one Battle of Umbara moment.
Oh boy this isn’t gonna be good. Also yay sivkits! I’m happy to see them back in the picture even if they’re fuzzy little dumbasses.
I kind of expected the Consortium to face the remaining federation aliens before the SC.
This is ***not*** going to end well. Also, Paltans live for *centuries?*
Nah. This guy didn’t live for centuries and isn’t claiming so. He spent most of those centuries on ice as Archive resources
No. The Paltan Ambassidor is one of the Paltans kept in cryogenic stasis by the Farsul, and was rescued when the U.N. raided the Chronicle facility during the war. He's spent most of those centuries frozen in some laboratory.
I believe this Paltan was rescued from the archives, therefore they were in the deep freeze for a long time.
They can in cryosleep!
Sea of Imagination, Imagine Chronicle
The Paltan is from the Archives.
The shadow caste runs the consortium
36 minutes in with only 40 Reddit points? NOP fell off dude 😔 /s
Sivkit more like Midkit
For supposedly being a member of an herbivorous species, that Sivkit was acting like a massive ham - Shatner would be green with envy.
Oooo delightful 🤤
These sivkits are fucking hilarious
>Behold, Sapient Coalition—predators *worse* than the m-masters you serve. \**tilt*\* I have no compasion for him. The only reason I agree to intervene is because we can't let massacres be perpetrated like this. Otherwise, let the Sivkits, or at least this "diplomat", rot in their own shit... right, space locusts, we need to put down the Sivkits at soon at possible, we're just way too nice to do it without direct provocation. >*Whoever’s territory the Sivkits encroached on, they were shooting first and asking questions later.* On reflection, and from the Coalition's point of view only, I can't blame an unknown alien species for being aggressively isolationist, as is seems to be the case today. It's wrong, but everyone lacks of information and perhaps it's all a misunderstanding that can be resolved diplomatically. Sadly, we know that the problem is both simpler and more complex. A little taste of the real politics in the Coalition, it looks good, everyone now seems quite at ease with humans. Very interesting to see that the Venlil have decided to rename themselves Skalgans. I think Venlil was really their race name at first, but after that name was defiled by the Federation I can understand their desire to make a clean sweep of this past and name themselves in honor of the recovered name of their "World of Death". It's good to see that the diplomatic option was seized immediately, rather than a military stampede as the Sivkits expect and beg (albeit with some reasonable guarantees). Well, the two arcs are finally starting to connect, now there's still a whole galaxy of possibilities as to how this will go and could get out of hand.
I would not be so fast on judging the Sivkits, they just got reintroduced and there haven't been much stuff about them, so I would hold back calling for "puting them down", there is definitely more than meet the eye here, so I wouldn't be so fast in judging them, after all the sivktis always run away from the problems they find, like they did on NoP1 so there might be a reason as to why instead of just running away they decided to go back and ask for help from the SC
My comment about "put down" the Sivkits is a more general thing about all their space locusts behavior, not just today. I'm on a metronome between "leave them alone" and "solve what will inevitably be a problem one day". I admit I'm a bit quick to judge them on the basis of this single diplomat, but hey, that diplomat getting on my nerves very hard.
The Sivkits are coming from old information, remember that arxur liked to be called cruelty and shit like that, so the sivktis took what they knew would make an betterment arxur happy and applied to the humans, because the reality is, if they did that to a betterment arxur there was an actual good chance that they would succeed in both hyping up the arxur pride and also giving them an reason to fight (lost potential prey), the sivkit performance here is not one born out of just fear and federation dogma, but outright realpolitik and manipulation... They just didn't know, humans aren't like that, and neither are the Arxur now edit:typo
It would work on Dominion Arxur, true. It’s also true that their last contact with humans has us not presenting ourselves as anything like Dominion Arxur
I've also felt like their idea to hype up the humans was too clever for someone who supposedly has a messed up education system. The Sivkits lack in the intelligence services department but are able to construct good, and by good I mean pervasive, arguments with the old information they have. Because of this interaction, I think that the Sivkits could get away with manipu.ating the Axur back in the day when the Betterment was still a thing. They are definitely not 'idiots' in the sense that they can process information and be smart with how they want to achieve things. They are idiots because they ran away and refused to uncure but hey... humans can be idiots too. So, things do not look that bad for the Sivkits.
Genocide shouldn't be the first, second, or even the hundredth option.
And there it is....
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Dominos fall and tragedies strike. Oh, woeful sorrow, your next victim awaits.
It’d be interesting if Loxsel’s theater kid energy was entirely something he was doing on purpose. I think it’d be funny if that’s just how Sivkit talked but it’d make some character depth if he was putting on a performance. Granted, it still would be infuriating if he thought the “call them vicious bloodthirsty killers” thing would’ve been anywhere near endearing. I think characters putting on masks is fun but I can’t really see a benefit to intentionally making yourself a parody of the average Federation citizen
Interesting. Wonder how nobody asked “hey maybe these guys hated the Feds?”
Yeah, nah. This isn't just contrived conflict, it's railroaded in one of the stupidest ways I've ever seen. Screw this.