Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » Travellers (Semi-Open RP between Tara and Catrin)

Tara smiled at the question, "Well, how much they earn very much depends on their jobs. And this sip cost me several decades' worth of pay, but it was well worth it. Nearly seventeen million credits."

The AI spoke then, "Mistress is paid a considerable sum, due to her prominence in the academic field and because her work is often used to inform First Contact missions, helping the Senate decide which worlds to initiate Contact with and how to go about it. Thanks in part to mistress, almost six hundred worlds have been Contacted and their species brought into the Senate. She gains some recompense each time this occurs, as recognition for her help."

Tara glanced towards one wall, a slight frown on her face, "We've worked together for three centuries now, and yet I've never give you a name. Nor have you ever given yourself one."

"I have a name, mistress, but it is merely a label. It is nothing of importance." The AI said, "Oh, and if you want to try something new, Miss Catrin, I recommend trying some Mytheian Iekra. It is a form of meat stew favoured by Terelains living in the city of Mytheia on Aerin, it is a traditional dish made of multiple different meats and some vegetables. It is simple, a peasant's food, but I think it is one you may like."

Catrin nodded absently when informed about the price of the ship, calculating to herself that 1,2 million Credits would be about a year's pay for Tara – quite a lot of money for a bird – but then she was rather taken aback by the number of worlds Tara helped bring into the senate. “Six hundred?!”

She tilted her head curiously when Tara mused about not having given the AI a name, but didn't comment on it. Then she smiled and thanked the AI. “That sounds quite good.” She tried to find the Mytheian Iekra – quite a bit of work, since she didn't know anything about how the dishes on the menu were ordered – and, if no-one offered help, several minutes later she located it and selected it, stepped back with her hands folded and with a good feeling that she probably gained a little knowledge about the machine. Or the alphabet.

Tara watched with amusement as Catrin wrestled with the machine, "Yes, six hundred or so. Not that I keep count. Bear in mind that some of those worlds took a few centuries before they were Contacted... but still, it's a track record to be proud of."

"You can see why Mistress is considered to be one of the best Xenoanthropologists in this arm of the galaxy."

"And that's only because we've not visited many places in the other arms." Tara said with a smile.

"Not one for false modesty either." The AI said dryly.

Catrin turned to Tara instead of watching the little sparks this time. “Just a few centuries? I would have thought it would be longer. But six hundred... you must work quite quickly, then.”

She took her dish out when it was ready, and selected a spoon next. Then she took both and went to sit down, trying to guess from the smell of the dish how it will taste. It smelled good, meaty and spicy. She took a small spoonful, gave it a thorough look and then she tasted it, a little gingerly, and aware that Tara was probably watching her with amusement.

Tara chuckled as she watched her eat, "Good isn't it? Oh! and yes, I do work fast... though it depends on the planet. I only stayed here for five years, for instance, but I've got an overview of the planetary culture and in-depth detail of some of the more important aspects."

"Mistress' ability to work fast but still produce detailed, meaningful analyses is on of the reasons she is at the forefront of her field." The AI said, "I am quite proud to work with her.. even if she can be annoying at times."

Tara rolled her eyes, "You know, I can't decide whether you think your my father or my husband with the way you act sometimes."

"You do not seem to mind either way, mistress." The AI pointed out in amusement.

Catrin nodded and went on eating, giving Tara an amused look. “Yes, quite good,” she answered with a smile after swallowing a mouthful. “Well, that's wonderful. Also, I'm sure that most of her traits you find annoying are helping her in her work,” she said, directing her last sentence at the AI.

"Quite possibly." The AI said, "That is why I have made no attempt to change her behavioral patterns, with the exception of attempting to get her to be more cautious... as you can no doubt guess, I have had little success in that regard."

Tara stuck her tongue out at the wall, in lieu of anything else to direct her gesture at, "I'm a thousand years old! I can look after myself."

"Yes, and that's why I'm here. To make sure that you do." The AI said, "Your father also instructed me not to allow any men inside the ship. Though your mother gave me.. contradictory orders." The AI paused, "I am not certain what I would do if I had to act on those orders."

"You'd follow what my dad said." Tara said instantly, "You'd be jealous otherwise."

"W-what!? I am an Artificial Intelligence! Why would I be jealous?"

"I'm simply that attractive." Tara said glibly, striking a seductive pose for a moment before bursting into laughter.

Catrin nearly choked on her last spoonful of the dish, went into a fit of cough from there and when it was finally over, she gave both Tara and the wall behind her a reprimanding look. “Neither of you have any regard for my health. Such conversations while I'm eating! Are you trying to make me die of laughter and good food? Now that would be something,” she finished with a thoughtful look in her face. Then she gave Tara an amused wink.

Tara smiled, "Well, there are far worse ways to go than by good food and good cheer!"

"Quite. However, I believe Miss Catrin would rather she not die at all." The AI said, "I apologise for my Mistress. She spends little time in the company of others like this. She very rarely stops studying... she's not well versed in etiquette I'm afraid."

"Hey! I'll have you know I wrote the book on etiquette! Three of them in fact!" Tara said.

"Then perhaps you should take your own advice." The AI suggested, "And not give your guests reason to choke to death on their food by making coarse jokes."

“Well, in any case, it would leave you with a problem of what to do with my body... I'm sure you'd be able to solve that little problem without much difficulty, though. ” It was clear that Catrin was following Tara's line of thought.

Tara gave her a rather morbid smile, "Well, we could space it... blast it into a star... hell, any number of things in space and there'd be no evidence." She suddenly got a thoughtful look, "Actually, that'd be an interesting thing to study... the funerary practices of spaceborne cultures."

The AI sighed, "Well... no you've done it. She'll start planning how to study that the moment we get back home. I was so looking forward to having a little time to rest back in civilisation."

"Got some pretty simulation back home waiting for you?" Tara teased.

"Nothing of the sort!" The AI said.

Catrin gave the wall a wide smile. “But it does sound like fun! And I'm sure that some theoretical backing will be necessary to determine what to study first, so you will get some time to rest for sure.”

Tara nodded, "Oh yes! I'll have to look up prior studies.. I'll hit the Royal Archives on Oberoth, mybe the Senate Libraries on Cosmopolis... hmm... Maybe I'll start of with the Sithrimni, talk o them about their funerary practices during their exile from the Xia'Vex System."

"In any case, this will have to wait until we return to Senate Space. We will reach the gas giant in one hour and I will use its gravity well to slingshot us out of the system, once clear of the star's gravity I will initiate our first FTL jump." The AI said, "It will take several jumps before we reach the nearest Jumpgate, but once we get thee the journey will speed up considerably."

"Indeed. It takes only a single day to travel between Jumpgates, no matter the distance between them, that way we can cut down journey times considerably." Tara explained.

Catrin was a little surprised. “Oh. So you can't just use a library or database at home to access all that? Is information like this not widely available? I have to admit though, the idea of talking with the Sithrimni is interesting. How do you talk to them, if you aren't talking directly with the Mind?"

She nodded when explained how the jumping works, then spoke to the AI. “What is the difference to you between being home and having to travel? Or rather, what are the benefits of rest back in civilization to an AI? Speaking with friends, some entertainment?” Catrin asked, curious.

Tara smiled, "Well, the information isn't exactly secret, but it is much faster to look up the information in a dedicated Archive rather than just by searching the SenNet, it's also much less likely to be information made up by some random fool pretending to be a credible academic."

"As for speaking with the Sithrimni, it is relatively easy. It has been centuries since the last flare-up of hostilities between the Xin'Ta'Faxi and the Sithrimni, and their borders are quite open to travel, we could travel to Xaz'Mathiadu, which is their most heavily populated world and speak to a Sithrimni historian, or if we are fortunate we might find the Temple of Sithrim, a Titan-class vessel, the only one in the Collective, home to the Host of the Mind. The Host is the most powerful psionic in the entire Collective and it is her will that shapes the chaotic sea of thoughts, imposing order upon the group mind. It is easiest to contact the Mind through her, but whether or not we will be allowed to even see the ship is up to the Mind herself."

"She's quite accommodating to Terelains." Tara said, "Our agelessness fascinates her, and because we have so much experience we can be fountains of new information." She giggled, "We're something of kindred spirits in that regard; always curious about other people."

"But it will take research and a little diplomacy before we get that far." The AI said, "So I'll no doubt get some time off. And to answer your question, Miss Catrin, by being in Senate Space I will be in closer proximity to the SenNet, this will make it easier for me to contact old acquaintances and catch up, maybe swap a few war stories with some of my old comrades in arms."

"He'll probably upload part of himself to a virtual reality conglomeration on the SenNet. They're basically simulations which AIs use as meeting point in cyberspace. I guess you could call them the AI equivalent of a pleasure world." Tara said.

"I'll try not to allow too much of my processing power to be diverted by such frivolities, naturally. Because AIs think so much faster than organics, we're as close to Gods in the SenNet as you can get, so whenever we go wandering through cyberspace we can get a little distracted." Said the AI.

Catrin smiled. “I see.” She paused for a moment. "That's something I've been saying a lot lately, haven't I? Thank you for all your answers, again, this has been enlightening. But perhaps it's time I used the information database of yours, in order to stop pestering you with all those questions.”

Then she remembered something important. “But before I do – magic. What are you able to do with it, Tara? I've seen you heal your hand so far.”

Tara smiled, "Well, I'm not all that good with magic, I can do a little healing, minor cuts, bruises, that sort of thing, I did invest a little time in trying to learn the Gift of Tongues, but it took too much time from my other studies, so my magic lets me learn languages easier, but not understand the right away."

"In general, however, magic is capable of a great many things. Most Terelain technology is based on magic, and it is used in the making of pretty much everything, this is why most Terelain machines and tools can last for centuries of constant use. The most common forms of magic are Astral Projection, Aetheric Communication, Elemental Manipulation and Symbolic Magic, though there are many more disciplines and with greater study or talent, a Mage can do almost anything with magic; Archmagi are immensely powerful, specialists in a given field. An Elementalist Archmage can control the elements with such precision that to more... primitive culture he can seem to be a God. An Archmage skilled in spatial manipulation can teleport vast distances and distort space itself."

"The AI is partly magical, like most of our technology, and some of our sensors use magic to function. The hull is a melding of nanotechnology and magic allowing it to be manipulated at will, I even have tiny magitechnological nanomachines in my blood which help me fight off diseases that my immune system wouldn't ordinarily be able to handle." Tara said, "It is because of magic that my people have become one of the most advanced in the galaxy. Of course getting a few thousand years' headstart helped too."

While Tara was speaking, Catrin pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees. “Again, fascinating,” she said with a smile when Tara was finished. “And the Council of Archmagi sounds more and more appealing, too. Are there any limitations to these powers? Like, can a spatial manipulation-specialized Archmage teleport all day long, without exhausting the ability?”

She laughed and shook her head, "No! Of course not! It all depends on natural talent and study, really, but there's only so much stress a Mage can put on their body before it shuts down. However, my people have come up with shortcuts; pieces of Magitechnology designed to aid spellcasting and spellweaving, exterior sources of magical energy to use instead of the body's natural stores of mana, that sort of thing."

"Indeed. An Archmage might be able to teleport for reater distancs and for longer than a normal Mage, but even they would require rest, unless they had a powerful mana source with them, such as the mana crystal core of a starship's reactor system." The AI said.

"Of course, drawing upon such a potent source of pure mana is incredibly dangerous anyway, and you'd hve to be very skilled and very careful if you tried it." Tara said, "Theoretically, an Archmage would be able to create a stable feedback loop between the mana in his body and a mana crystal, and thereby create a souce of near-infinite magical power, however no one has ever survived such an attempt, and death by mana-sickness isn't pleasant... nor are the effects of the detonation of a mana-saturated object."

"Indeed. It is theorised that the Old Ones were able to cause the Great Cataclysm on ancient Aerin by overloading a powerful mana-gathering device. The resulting explosion shattered the original super-continent into five pieces and altered the very fabric of Aerin's magic itself, plunging the entire world into the Second Great Dark Age." TheAI said, "Needless to say, experiments with powerful mana devices are prohibited."

Catrin thought for a moment about her rings before smiling at Tara and nodding. They weren't rings at all, instead being devices able to collect energy, and possibly mana, for their wearer – or user, if they were shaped differently, in a form impossible to wear. It had just become obvious that revealing them to anyone would be very unwise. And their use might be detected.

“Hmm. Say someone has a magical item on them. Would a mage, or someone else, easily detect it?” Catrin asked with a thoughtful look on her face.