[ january i log: cetaganda ]

[barrayarmods]

Who: Everyone
What: Arrival on Barrayar and what follows
When: January 2nd - January 17th
Where: Cetagandan base
Warnings: None (at the moment)


welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to beyond the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling. A steep mountain range towers overhead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons, and the foothills behind you ascend quickly into rocky mountain faces. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.

And you're not alone. There are nine other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.

They're fitted with what look like futuristic tactical vests and armed with some kind of energy weapons that look deadlier than not. They surround you at gunpoint, dealing orders in intelligible English, but with some obscure, unplaceable accent, and their faces are colored with vivid paint. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that you are not the people they at first assumed -- something about Barrayarans, the barbarians in the mountains. The one who seems to be in charge steps away to murmur into what looks like a wristwatch-like communicator. After a minute or two of inaudible conversation, the officer steps back in. He orders his men to escort you all back to their base. As long as you cooperate, that's all that will happen.


the base
You are taken back to a military base of considerable scale and some serious fortification. There are two rounds of guard checks to go through, both taking what must be a lot longer than usual, and it's cold out. You are ushered past the guard checks into what looks like a barracks building, but relegated to a bunk on one end. They seem to have cleared the immediate area, with guards posted at the door, but there's audible activity beyond the short hallway in front of the door. They make it clear you are not under arrest, that you are merely being detained until they have ascertained the situation -- the word quarantine is used, but it doesn't seem to be of a medical sort. Either way, the only people who come to the bunk are those cleared by the guards, and they all seem much more interested than hostile.

They answer your questions with the very basic facts: the people who hold custody of you are the military service of the Cetagandan Empire, and the planet you are on is their Ninth Satrapy, and they're currently at odds with some of the native population. They won't say it outright, but it's clear they have no clue how you came to be here or why, but it's clearly of great interest to them. For the most part, the Cetagandan soldiers are civil, if at times distant and aloof, but if you look a little less -- or more -- than human, they'll eye you with visible curiosity, perhaps even some kind of appreciation.

At daylight, a few women in lab coats and the same face-paint as the soldiers come to the room to escort you across the base to the nearby medbay, two or three at a time. The medbay is an intimidatingly sterile and state-of-the-art facility, all gleaming chrome and polished glass and crisp holo displays. You are taken in one at a time for a physical examination -- they have to make sure you haven't brought any foreign contagions into their base, after all -- but the military physician isn't the only base personnel in the exam room. You hear the word exotic tossed around a few times until they realized they're talking about you. They call you the exotics.


the exotics room
For a military bunk, it's in surprisingly tasteful design. The room sleeps a dozen soldiers, so you even have a little bit of room to yourself, and while the furnishings are relatively spartan, they're hardly uncomfortable. If you're in need of clothing, the soldiers will bring you base fatigues – no rank insignia, of course, but the make of the textile is surprisingly fine.

You're served food at mealtimes, a combination of shelf-stable meal rations and what seems to be fresh food, all prepared with unusual artistry for a military base. There's a sophistication to the preparation that seems more like it belongs in a four-star restaurant than a military base. If you have any special medical needs, they'll do their best to attend to them -- and their medicine seems impressively advanced.

Soldiers and scientists alike come to the room every so often to ask you questions, more like interviews than interrogations, but behind the civility there's a burning intellectual curiosity. They seem intent on knowing as much as you'll tell them, and then some.

The nearest bathroom is at the end of the hall, and while they seem to have cleared the area of all other personnel, showers and baths are scheduled, and any trips to the restroom are chaperoned. The guards, while not hostile, are certainly not interested in letting you escape. You could try sneaking past them, but you probably won't get far.

Well, at least you've got each other for company: the exotics on the Ninth Satrapy.

Comments

[standsentinel]

"Maybe," says the mid-30s man across the table from him, "Or maybe showing off that they have the energy to spend on making military rats look pretty is part of the game. 'Look how advanced our culture is we can devote time to making MREs look beautiful' kind of thing." Regardless of their artistry, the large assembly of food on Kaidan's plate is being put away with a methodical rotation through the different sides and mains.

He's exchanged a few words with Duv by now, given a brief summary of himself -- Earthborn, military, but from an Earth and an interstellar military that's never heard of Cetaganda, Komarr, Barrayar or any of this. Beyond that, he seems to have been splitting his time between taking the measure of his fellow exotics and the guards with long stretches of meditation.

[komarran]

Duv likewise has shared a few basics of himself, the parts he's not withholding from prying Cetagandans. It's easy enough to claim he's from around the same year as they're in now simply pulled from another planet. An academic by trade and no mention of his military training. It's easier to keep his cover story based in truth and only omitting the parts that would draw unwanted attention.

"It does seem to fit into the aesthetic and goals here," he replies with a sigh as he uses a fork to muddle the flowery design of his food. If only he could get rid of the smell and make it less overwhelming. "Perhaps the true reason we were brought here was to be an audience to it all."

[standsentinel]

Kaidan huffs a laugh, and sections off a 'petal' from what he's assuming was some sort of mashed tuber before it was introduced to no less than five different spices, all in harmonious shades of colour, and artistically sculpted onto his plate. "I'm sure they'd like us to think that, instead of the reality that they had no clue we were coming and now they're scrambling madly to figure out what to do with us."

The petal now reduced to a mouthful of food like any other, he chases it with a sip of water that's somehow managed to be just plain water. (The glass it's served in, in addition to being indestructible, is also all elegance and ergonomic design.) "I'm reminded a little of how first contact went, where I'm from. Or the fallout from it, anyway."

[komarran]

Duv taps his fork thoughtfully against the edge of his tray as he considers Kaidan's words. The concept of 'first contact' meant little here in a Nexus full of humans and genetic constructs. There had been no one to make first contact with unless this entanglement with Barrayar counted as one in a way.

Which meant Kaidan's universe became a lot more interesting.

"First contact? With who?" he asks, ignoring his food for now. If it's what Duv thinks the man means, he knows some scientists off-world that would be very excited to speak with Kaidan.

[standsentinel]

"The turians, originally. Had a bit of a, uh, misunderstanding over mass relays which led to them attacking us, which led to the First Contact War," Kaidan explains, the answer given with an interested look of his own -- that Duv reacts with curiosity rather than recognition is another piece of what's turning out to be a very jumbled puzzle indeed.

He settles back, water glass in hand, and explains that "The fallout that I was reminded of was that the turians -- the species that was the main military backbone of the Citadel Council -- had been fought to a near standstill by a species that had just started poking beyond their own home system. I, ah, got a look at some of the Council's historical records after the fact, since this was when I was a kid. 'Political panic' is a good summary."

[komarran]

Duv's first thought that turians were another human, space-faring empire are dashed as soon as Kaiden breaks out the word 'species.' Aliens? And with a similar story to what is happening here. The academic in him sees the same parallels and the fact that Kaidan has found himself on the other side of the equation this time around. What he wouldn't give to see historical records of that magnitude.

"I'm afraid I've never heard of turians before," he starts as he considers his next question. Establishing the when first feels important and he wonders if it's as far in the past for Kaiden as this Cetagandan invasion is supposed to be for Duv. "How long ago did this happen in your timeline?"

[standsentinel]

"You're not the first person to say that, which is bothering me," says Kaidan about the absence of turians in everyone else's experience. (Or at least the subset of 'everyone else' that includes interstellar civilization.) To answer Duv's question, there's an instinctive hand gesture, right hand over left forearm, before Kaidan belatedly remembers that he has no omni-tool here, and especially not its onboard encyclopedia. He clears his throat, a touch awkward, and falls back on human memory. "Thirty years ago, give or take. I was about six at the time, and the news about aliens existing carried a bit more weight with me than the politics around it all. Turians look a bit like avian dinosaurs, which just upped the cool factor for a six year old."

A fact about Little Kaidan which he will never, ever, share with Garrus.

[komarran]

He merely raises a brow at Kaidan's first comment. It's a feeling Duv knows well given how everyone he's spoken with that's non-Cetagandan has no idea where they are or who has them hostage. The former he could pin down as galactics not caring about what many view as a backwater empire, but not knowing the Cetagandan Empire was another story. It left him with the nagging concern that Cetaganda was messing with far more than they opt to be.

"Aliens," he repeats with a shake of his head. "You're fortunate there aren't any Betan scientists here, they've been searching the Nexus for any signs of non-human life." And would hound Kaidan far more than Duv would for more information about his universe. "I imagine the fallout from such a war is ongoing decades later."

[standsentinel]

"Betans? You'll need to give me the run-down on the major colonial players out here," Kaidan requests as an aside, with all the tacit assumptions of an earthborn son that of course humanity's homeworld is at the centre and everyone else has just developing homestead on a planetary scale.

"But... yeah, aliens. Twelve other species we regularly rub shoulders with, so you can see my surprise at there only being humans here. We got over the First Contact War pretty quickly, which is just as well." What ease there was in Kaidan's tone falters, then vanishes entirely, as the major looks weary and falls silent. How, exactly, to sum up the Reaper War without sounding insane?

[komarran]

His brows furrow as he tries to imagine a Nexus with not only human galactic empires, but alien ones as well. All he can conjure up is various genetic modifications that have formed their own groups in niche systems though that's hardly the same. Kaidan's request is far easier to deal with.

"Those would be the Cetagandan Empire," he says with a small motion to the base around them, "And the Betans although the latter seeks to explore and colonize on uninhabited planets." When the mood struck them. "There are other planetary governments that hold their own, but not on the scale they do. Komarr would be the closest planet to Barrayar, but it's primarily a trade hub."

[standsentinel]

That Betan expansion onto uninhabited worlds is presented as a counterpoint to the Cetagandans is enough to lift Kaidan's eyebrows slightly. Territorial squabbles in the Terminus systems or lengthy rounds of Council petitions aside, colonizing empty garden worlds is the rule in his experience, rather than the exception. "So our hosts are in the middle of a land grab?" he wonders, shaking his head at the half-eaten vegetable art on his plate as if chastising it for hiding such aims beneath artistry. "What's Earth's take on it all? Or... are they based on Earth?"

[komarran]

"The planet is inhabited and has been for centuries. Barrayar is rejoining the rest of the Nexus since an uncollapsed wormhole leading here was discovered." The shorthand of the event and one many on Komarr knew given the locations of the newly discovered wormhole. The only route there was through Komarran space which Cetaganda had graciously bought its way through.

"Earth's take?" he asks with a raised brow. "I gather the planet holds more sway over diplomatic affairs in your Nexus than ours."

[standsentinel]

"You could say that," Kaidan agrees, and leaves unspoken the or at least it did before the Reapers set most of it on fire that realistically caps the statement. Something Duv's said has caught his attention, and he rewinds back to prod at it. "What do you mean by wormhole? I've heard of them as a theoretical concept, or in old sci-fi vids, but are you saying they've been observed and there's one around this solar system?"

[komarran]

"Observed?" He shakes his head and taps a fingertip on the tabletop. "They're the only way in and out of a system. We travel through them using jump drive implants on our pilots. It's the reason Barrayar's been isolated until recently, their wormhole collapsed and it was centuries before a new one was discovered."

[standsentinel]

"...huh," is Kaidan's answer, lapsing into a considering silence as a few surface ramifications of this occur to him. First and foremost, these odd future people have either never heard of or have forgotten mass effect physics. Second... "So... when you say 'Nexus' you're talking about a network of wormholes. Which I'm assuming don't have to have much in common with normal distances."

Absentmindedly, he finishes the remainder of the vegetable side and pulls over some exquisitely baked bread. "That must, uh, complicate the political landscape."

[komarran]

"Nexus is the term used for everything as a whole." And apparently not in use in other universes and timelines. "Which would include every system, its planets and wormholes leading between included."

He uses his fork to gesture at the space around them. "You're already seeing how it complicates. There's only one wormhole that reaches Barrayar with the closest colonized planet five jumps away. No one else will send fleets to aid or stop what's happening here."

Partially because they'd have to deal with Duv's home planet's space to reach access. Politics.

[standsentinel]

"...damn," says Kaidan to that, because really, what else is there to say?

After a moment to revise his strategy map, patchy though it is, he reflects that "I'm guessing, human ingenuity being what it is, that you still have the concept of blockade runners. Did the Barrayarans have time to make any contacts of their own before our hosts showed up, or were the Cetagandans the first ones to find them?"

[komarran]

"They have yes, and it's taken time before Cetaganda could amass a sizable force to make it here." Long enough that Betan blood has made it into some Barrayaran lines though Duv knows that isn't surprising given how Betans are. "Unfortunately no governmental agreements. Anyone who would want to get involved would have to travel through Komarran space and only traders venture there."

Never mind the taxation that hit any ships traveling through there. That had been one part of Barrayar's later control of the planet the rest of the Nexus had appreciated.

[standsentinel]

"And traders aren't likely to have the sort of muscle to accomplish anything, even if they didn't have their bottom lines as a bigger priority to worry about. Damn," says Kaidan again. "It sounds like the guerilla war we've got ringside seats to is about the only option the locals could take to resist, if they wanted to. Explains the security fencing."

[komarran]

"No, they hire mercenaries and keep track of the wormholes in their personal space. It wouldn't be cheap for another fleet to make it through to intervene if they wanted to." Ah, Komarr. Sometimes he wonders why he feels so closely aligned with his home planet. "Unfortunately I think you're right. I'm afraid it's a matter of time before we experience our first raid."

And he'd get to see first-hand how the guerilla warfare in this invasion happened instead of reading about it.