Omoikane - Jigufor

[jayphailey]

Omoikane 19 - Touring Damyip 17.3

The Runabout was named Kokalaban, to commemorate an Ane physicist who advanced their theoretical physics.

He’d lived a million years ago, but his work was still cited by the Ane to this day. Apparently, his ghost lived in The All, and thought it was fun to have a spaceship named after him.

My brother wrote a whole book explaining it, and I still didn’t really get it all the way.

I kind of suspect that to really understand the Ane would take close enough contact to wind up becoming Ane, which also happened to my brother. So I’d let him handle that.

The Kokalaban looked sort of like a miniature manta ray, and sort of like a crab because its upper hull became part of the Omoikane’s hull when it was docked.

This was the first time we’d used one operationally. It still had the new starship smell.

**You know that’s deliberately added, right?** Galaglan said.

“Huh?”

**The new starship smell. There's a replicator pattern for it, and the last step of the build after she's cleaned and prepped for duty is to spritz new starship smell around.**

“Why?” I asked

**Because it’s funny, because humans enjoy it, and it actually affects how you relate to newly built starships.**

“Huh.” I had to talk to myself about some things I took for granted. Later.

Tarla, our Tanaki helmsman opened a channel to the new base “ Kokalaban to Damyip 17.3, requesting permission to dock.”

“Granted. Welcome.”

With simple efficient moves, Tarla drove up to the docking port and parked the little ship against it. Machinery grabbed our runabout and made a good seal. The panels said it was a good docking and conditions were good outside, so we stood up and entered the Damyip station.

It was a generic Federation temporary base pod. The Federation had a generic cargo pod. The template had stayed the same for a hundred and fifty years. Originally carried one or two at a time, now the big Ane cargo ships could carry dozens.

We had cargo handling gear and facilities all over the Federation tuned to that design and it worked.

The pods were so handy and ubiquitous that Starfleet began using them in other ways. This was one. A temporary space station, built in pieces inside the cargo pods. Haul pods to the site, connect them together, and activate, voila, an instant space station.

So it wasn‘t unusual that the Damyip adopted these things. They were flinging themselves headlong into the Federation.

What did surprise me was how much they cribbed from the Starfleet design.

We toured the thing, led by Tamata, a male “Social Unit”. Tamata looked like a human man with the high visibility orange skin the Damyip Social units used.

They added a lot of Damyip manufacturing and maintenance sections to the generic layout.

“Usually we keep it at pure nitrogen in here,” Tamata said. “ It keeps the pressurized sections working as designed but doesn’t impose a corrosion penalty the way oxygen does.”

“You have no plants or animals?” I asked out of reflex. Usually, in ships and stations, we’ll have some hydroponics and some animals around.

“No. We don’t need them the way your people do.”

“You think we need them?” I asked.

“There’s a reason humanoids include plants and animals in ship and station designs as soon as they can. These temp station units have spaces for such facilities. We’ll add them if we get organic residents. Fortunately, with Jigu nearby we have a ready source of applicable plants and animals.”

“How are you handling security here?” I asked

“We’re a little sensitive on the topic of cyber security, as you might imagine, so we have the best security we can make.”

“How about physically? How about in terms of espionage?”

“Well, we have limits of available resources. We were just as vulnerable to the Dragons as the rest of the system. If you hadn’t gotten here, they could have easily destroyed us.”

“What about Orions or other hostile actors?”

“Well, we’re not that amenable to bribery or corruption. An Orion scout could approach and scan us. We wouldn’t have much to say about it. We don’t have anything here really, that would be unusual or surprising to Orions. All of our tech is off-the-shelf Federation materials or our own alterations of Federation technology.

“I’m actually concerned about the Jigufor.”

“Hmmm. As with the Orions, they can scan us. There’s not much we can do about that. We have given them tours. They do not have the cybernetic capabilities to threaten us.”

“One of their scientists observed my ship's warp field and correctly observed that we were using disodium. What else can they glean from observation of us?”

Tamata looked at me thoughtfully “What do you have that you do not want them to observe and replicate?”

“Our shields and weapons technology is classified. We don’t want to share it around without careful consideration.”

“You understand, Captain, that the cutting-edge of Starfleet technology has not been shared with us, yet, either.”

I blinked at Tamata “Oh?”

“No. We have been gifted older tech. More generic material. What was once described as the trailing edge of technology. We have developed what we were given to suit our own needs. We could flawlessly duplicate phasers and photon torpedoes that the Federation used fifty years ago.

But what we’re putting on our ships is our own development of that technology. It’s not the same as the technology you’re using.”

“Huh,” I said. I wasn’t really privy to those details.

“We are sharing with the Jigufor what we feel is adequate to their needs from our own engineering development. And, of course, our impression of what they need has changed. Technology transfer is part of the price for us placing a base here to help support you and other projects.”

I looked out of the viewport at the sere and gray surface of the asteroid the base rested on. And in. “I just can’t help feeling that this is all developing too quickly. It feels out of control.”

“I’ll point out that being able to see a quantum torpedo is one thing. Being able to describe how a quantum torpedo works is another. Being able to make them is quite a different matter. Jigufor’s native technology base is primitive by Earth’s standards. They’ll be upgrading and bootstrapping themselves for quite some time before they could ever hope to equal a Starfleet ship.”

“We will be moving escorts into the system to help them against another incursion. We will be letting them bootstrap their own technology as they go. There’s time. We’ve requested a Federation diplomatic mission. We feel that the Jigufor could easily join the Federation’s circle of friends. Perhaps even the Federation itself, one day. You‘re good at making friends. Trust this ability, and let it work. “

“Hmmmph,” He had a point. The Damyip seemed really impressed at our friendliness. To the point where they were willing to stand back and let us take the lead… when we were around.

“What do you think of the Jigufor?” I asked.

Tamata considered it “They seem to be a normal human world.”

“Do you think they’re ready to be part of the Federation?”

“How so?”

“Ethically. It took Earth a long time to become ready to be part of the Federation. Vulcan and Andor also had a long development and growing pains. I’d hate to see some people from Earth’s history get ahold of modern weapons and technology.”

Tamata tilted his head “Do you see Earth as superior to Jigufor?”

I said “No” too quickly and too harshly.

So I had to stop and look at the idea. I didn’t like how that felt.

“If you want to find reasons to block a relationship with the Jigufor, you can,” Tamata said. “They have elements of their history and culture you’d find unpleasant. We feel that exposure to the Federation will encourage the Jigufor in a Federation-like direction. Humans enjoy having allies. We feel that engagement with the Federation over an extended period of time will yield good results.”

“Is that fair to them, though? Are we engaging in marshmallow-flavored imperialism here?”

Tamata smiled “A nice turn of phrase. Perhaps. As the Federation takes in worlds, it is flavored by them. Is it fair to the Federation for the Jigufor to influence them?”

I waved that point away “There’s a power dynamic. The Federation needs to be leery of pushing smaller parties around.”

Tamata said, “What would the people of Jigufor say?”

“I hope we don’t swamp them.”

“The math doesn’t work out for that to happen. The Damyip are far away. Earth is much farther. The Jigufor will always out- number other Federation people who come here. By a huge margin. The Bendarri are much closer. And much less careful about their influence. Once they decide someone’s in, they’re all in.”

“They’re awfully friendly.”

“Aggressively so. They have no use for nuance or uncertainty. They want to be close friends immediately.”

I sighed “So we might as well do what we can here. There’s no unscrambling the egg.”

“Another nice turn of phrase.”


“I wonder if I’m actually hungry?”

Tamata and Lotara laughed. I wasn’t kidding.


“I believe a full report to Starfleet Command will help them motivate a diplomatic mission more urgently,” Tamata said

I grimaced. Starfleet Command was going to get to see me making a speech to the Jigufor Confederation Legislature while a video of me getting the Omoikane shot up played in the background. Lovely.

We finished up the tour. While we were there, three more Damyip transports arrived with more cargo pods. A prefabbed anti-matter refinery, and a load of scoop shuttles for scooping deuterium from the gas giants at the system's edge.

I met one of the scoop shuttles.

Inside it was a standard shuttlecraft interior. Mostly Federation. It was old school now that I knew to look for those details, with added Damyip touches.

“Greetings Captain Hailey.” The Scoop Shuttle said in a pleasant generic male computer voice.

“Greetings yourself. What does it feel like to be a scoop shuttle?”

“It is more limited compared to being a social unit. But a social unit will never dive into a gas giant's atmosphere at multiple mach speeds, and ride the shockwaves down into deeper air. A social unit will not feel the heat and light of the planets and system primaries on its bare skin. They will never feel the weight and cryogenic cold of deuterium in their belly.

So there are things to be said about the experience. Also, I have a lot of friends to talk to about all manner of things. We’ve started a Vulcan movie club.”

He showed me the first few minutes of “The Theory of the Essence of Individual Being Within the Matrix of Social Cooperation - a love story.” Which was a Vulcan movie where two Vulcans from different philosophical schools decide that their differences will enhance a romantic relationship.

“Sure,” I said “Why not?”

[Innkeeper]

About the same chance of falling asleep at a Unicorn movie. 4 to 5 hours of beautiful scenery and music with Unicorn type people discussing deep concepts like love and social harmony.

[jayphailey]

Different Strokes for different folks.

[Innkeeper]

Different Strokes for different folks.

The Unicorns are more emotional.

[jayphailey]

They'd be puzzled by the Vulcan tendency to take complex emotions and dissect them.

[Innkeeper]

They'd be puzzled by the Vulcan tendency to take complex emotions and dissect them.

I believe so. Unicorns are more creatures of the heart and not the mind.