The Sea Beyond The Sky - An Aquatic AAR.

[Aquasparky]

Congrats on already finding three habitable planets and aliens! It seems that the Minnerians already got a lot done and that the age of exploration is continuing! I hope that you manage those colonies well and continue to grow the Union under the rule of Abibaal. I also like the writing you've got so far, and how it's descriptive of not only the political landscape but also the worlds that the Minnerians have discovered. The only thing that's throwing me off a little is some of the spelling, but that's so minor it can easily be missed.

 

[Nikolai]

Heh, I always wait a long time to build those corvettes. Not always wise.

 

[HistoryDude]

Nice world building!

Are there whales on their home planet? Or space whales a translation?

 

[RossN]

Part Two - Squalls on the Horizon (2210 to 2224)

Known space in 2224. The Galactic Quenti Empire (blue) is to the galactic north, the Sacred Minnerian Union
(blue border, sand interior) is to the south. The Figyar Galactic Bloc (salmon) lies to the south and east.

​

---

The water in the inner meeting chamber was crystal clear, blessed and filtered daily by members of the priesthood. It was an older room, like so much of traditional Himilico architecture grown and sculpted into a spacious oval from living multicoloured coral, the floors decorated by marble and gold inlay mosaics and lit by antique glass orbs. Save for the thoroughly modern holovision projector in the centre it had hardly changed in three centuries.

Currently half a dozen senior-most members of the priesthood and military and twice that many attendants, specialists and guards swam around the holovision projector. There, in ghostly-blue white was a quarter-sized recreation of the alien vessel destroyed in the encounter in the Bijh system.

'Certainly a warship and not a science vessel,' said the Chief Precentor. She looked away from the phantom vessel and towards the other clergy, gesturing with her left hand at the dagger shaped vessel. 'I am no expert of course, not like you Admiral Hamoun but even I can tell a spacecraft that has weapon emplacements and an armoured hull.'

'It moved to capture the Monarch of Creation,' replied Admiral Hamoun. She was a tall broad shouldered Minnerian with pinkish scales and the gravely voice all members of the warriors caste seemed to develop. 'And based on our scans and common sense we suspect it was behind the mysterious disappearance of several civilian vessels on the fringes of known space during the past half year.'

Abibaal bristled her brrhs. No one else had said anything but she could hear the expressions the other priests had given each other behind her back. 'So, war with these Delta Aliens?'

Haroun shook her head. 'No Chief Precentor, we'll have to learn more about them. We can't risk a clash without more information.'

Abibaal gestured at the holo of the wrecked dagger shaped ship. 'We know they are hostile and we know they explode when you shoot them. That is at least something. I suppose it's true though we'll need to know more.'

She grimaced. As much as the Chief Precentor felt vindicated in calling for a strong fleet this was not how she had wished first contact with civilised spacefarers to go...

---

The formation of factions in the Sacred Minnerian Union, 2211.​

The second decade of the Twenty Third Century saw the start of factional politics in the Sacred Minnerian Union. As the fringes of space were pushed back and new resources and even whole planets explored and claimed the consensus behind the exploration efforts began to crack.

The first modern faction was the Alien Justice Alliance, formed in 2211 by the celebrated scientist and explorer Hamelqart. The discovery of the Vissari and the Tinyanki had ignited a wave of enthusiasm for establishing friendly relations with aliens. This liberal faction was quickly joined by the spiritualist and conservative Committee of Exalted Clergy and the militarist March of the Brave, the last faction supported by the Chief Precentor herself.

None of these groups were political parties at least in the conventional sense. Rather they represented pressure blocs with representatives in the Intersea Conclave, the ruling oligarchy of priests. The Alien Justice Alliance for instance was especially popular with the Modernists among the priesthood while the Committee of Exhalted Clergy was preferred by the more traditional Ritualists. The March of the Brave, though retaining some support in the priesthood was unusual in being more popular in the ranks of the merchant and warrior castes who favoured a strong navy.

Meanwhile the exploration missions continued. Evidence of a long dead civilisation, the "Irassian Concordant" was discovered on Andrussa II in 2211. The following year an eerie vault on Zaurak II proved to be a collection of digitised brain recordings of another lost sapient species [1]. On the neighbouring planet of Zaurak III a unfathomably ancient alien mural was unearthed with some analysis suggesting it might be anything up to eighty million years old!

All of these discoveries had been exciting but unsettling. Besides the non-sapient Tinyanki and the primitive Vissari were the Minnerians alone in local space? In 2213 they found their answer when first subspace signals and then actual ship sightings of the so-called 'Delta Aliens' were recorded in the Bijh system on the 'northern' frontier. It would prove some time before these vague reports solidified into true contact.

The so-called 'Battle of Bijh' in 2216 that marked the first hositlities with then unknown Quenti.​

The discovery of the apparent 'breeding grounds' of the Tiyanki in the galactic south in 2215 temporarily drew Minneria attention away from the Delta Aliens but the following year events took a dark turn. In the Bijh system a Delta vessel tried to capture a Minnerian ore freighter. Minnerian patrol ships in the area responded to the distress calls and blew up the offending mystery ship.

In the aftermath of the 'Battle of Bijh' Abibaal ordered the Union Navy to hack into the transmissions of the Delta Aliens. She knew well this would be interpretted as a hostile act but the aliens had proven themselves hostile already.

It took longer than any one expected and it was a nerve wracking wait but finally in early 2219 the Minnerians established official contact with the Delta Aliens with a two way communication between ships in the Bijh system transmitted back and forth to the respective homeworlds. It was not a happy encounter nor an extended one.

Official first contact with the Quenti, 2219.​

The Galactic Quenti Empire lay immediately to the galactic north of the Sacred Minnerian Union. Initially intelligence on the inhabitants proved elusive beyond the obvious that they were carbon based, oxygen breathers of apparently roughly similar technology to the Minnerians. Their spiritual beliefs (if any) were an enigma. It was not even known for certain where their homeworld actually lay.

Finding out all of this proved the task of a male Minnerian named Bodesakkun. A pink scaled member of the merchant caste Bodesakkun was not young (he was already forty nine in 2219) but he had been involved in the decoding of the original Quenti transmissions. Now he was authorised to turn full spy and study the Minnerians unfriendly neighbours. It was a difficult task given the Quenti closed their borders almost at once after making contact but Abibaal had faith in him.

Unfortunately the Chief Precentor was fighting a war of her own back on Tarcadal. By tradition a Chief Precentor served a twenty year term before being up for re-election by the members of the Intersea Conclave. Abibaal was facing three challengers - Admiral Hamoun, Hierarch Azrupillies and Interpreter Eshakkun.

The Chief Precentor election of 2220.​

Hamoun was barely a candidate. It was unthinkable that a member of the warrior caste would be given power and that she had run at all was a scandal even if there was a potential war in the offing. What Hamoun's run did achieve was to undermine Abibaal's support by making it look like the warrior caste didn't respect her - a disaster for a Chief Precentor who until now had been the face and voice of the hawks [2].

Hierarch Azrupillies, an older female priestess-administrator was already responsible for much of the running of the government, was considered capable and had few enemies but was a rather dry and colourless candidate.

That left Eshakkun. As with Azrupillies she was on the older side, and had spent her career as an 'interpreter' (a member of the clergy devoted to research science.) Like most scientifically inclined Minnerian clergy she was a Modernist, more of a philosopher than a theist but she had avoided alienating the conservative Committee of Exalted Clergy. Her focus away from the feud with the Quenti also made her appealing to the Alien Justice Alliance.

In the election of 2220 the prelates narrowly went for Eshakkun. The disappointed Abibaal retired to write her memoirs and plot her return to political life.

Eshakkun's term in office saw relations with the Quenti grow steadily worse (by 2221 the rivalry between the powers was undisguised) but a more promising note came from the galactic south where transmissions from a new alien species had been detected. In 2223 the Minnerians would make contact with the Figyar Galactic Bloc.

First contact with the Figyari, 2223.​

The Figyari were a tall terrestrial avian species from a dry savanna world descended from flightless predators. Their communication before being translated was composed of threating hoots, cries and clamours and their appearance was to Minnerian eyes ugly, even frightening. All that being said the warlike aliens seemed far friendlier than the Quenti. In contrast to the nefarious Quenti the Figyari operated under a stern code of martial honour and incorporated the spiritual domain into their lives, worshipping a vast pantheon of local deities and hero-cult ancestors.

Relations between the Minnerans and the Figyari would probably have been good anyway - for all their physical and physiological differences there were points of culture and philosophy each could recognise in the other. What drove Eshakkun to make friends with the alien avians was the desire o have a friendly border in the event of war with the Quenti. Within weeks of communications being established the two powers had exchanged embassies [3].

For the Minnerian public, once they recovered from the sheer ugliness of the Figyari, the exoticism of the aliens was intoxicating. The Quenti had been cold and closed from the start and the Vissari only observed from a distance but the open Figyari gave the people of Tarcadal their first real glimpse into a wider universe. Everything about the aliens seemed marvellously strange from their feathers (feathers!) to their food (small mammalians, eaten alive and swallowed whole for preference.)

Naturally it was the spiritualism of the Fiygari that drew the priestly caste most. If there was a touch of dismay that the aliens appeared to follow personalised gods rather than the more remote abstract divine favoured by the Minnerian theologians it was still intriguing evidence of the universality of the divine. The Minnerian merchants and warriors were if anything even more interested in links with their counterparts across the stars.

As friendly as these early contacts were they did not yet approach anything like an alliance or defensive pact. In late 2223 there was a border scare, ultimately proven to be long range sensors misattributing Tinyanki movements for enemy warships. It was an embarrassing mistake (and Abibaal made a lot of hay out of it from the sidelines) but it did remind everyone that the Minnerians bordered an unfriendly power. The information on the Quenti provided by Bodesakkun was useful but frustratingly far from complete.

Some voices in the Intersea Conclave frankly argued for a preventative war with the Quenti at once, rather than waiting for the enemy to attack at their leisure. The Chief Precentor pushed back, not out of pacifism (by now all but the most optimistic fringes of the Alien Justice Alliance believed war was coming) but simply because the Minnerians knew too little about what they were facing.

Given the closed nature of the Galactic Quenti Empire the discussions among the blue skinned humanoids would not be known until after the war. Certainly the Empire was confident of it's military capabilities but they had sources of their own and could see the Minnerians and Figyari moving closer together. The decisions of the Quenti Imperial Court were guided by this strange mix of present confidence and future pessimism. Strike soon and crush the Minnerians or wait and let them form an alliance with the fearsome Figyari.

(There was another even more pressing reason for the Quenti haste, one entirely internal to their empire. However it would take the Minnerians many years to become aware of this element...)

Halfway through 2224 the dam burst. In a characteristically brusque communiqué the Quenti declared war on the Minnerians. The aliens had the gall to lay claim to the Bijh system, the same site of that fatal encounter a decade before.

At a special session of the Intersea Conclave on Tarcadal Eshakkun condemned the Quenti, confirmed Admiral Hamoun in command of the fleet and ordered war material and experts to Bijh to shore up the defences of the station there.

The first galactic war had not come at the choice of the Minnerians, nor at a time they'd have hoped for but it did not catch them completely unprepared either. The next few years would be bloody...

The Quenti declare war, 2224.​

Footnotes:

[1] There was much debate about what to do with the recordings - Minnerians had never agreed on concepts of the afterlife and the clash of beliefs could get very heated - but eventually it was decided to safely store the brain tapes.

[2] Hamoun's pre-war movements would soon be overshadowed by her actions in the First Quenti-Minnerian War and her break with Abibaal would prove obscure, with neither woman choosing to focus on it in their respective memoirs. Most observers have since concluded it was more a clash between egos and personalities than any great ideological divide.

[3] The Figyar embassy in Himilco proved a challenge for Minnerian architects, as it had to be both beautiful and comfortable and in the open air. Specialised diving suits and submersibles allowed the Figyar delegation access to the rest of the Minnerian capital but it would remain a difficult business for years to come. The first Minnerian embassy on the Figyar homeworld proved equally troublesome as the small alien seas where too salty for Minnerian comfort!

 

[RossN]

Two habitable planets this early, now thatt's luck! However, it may also become a source of tension as they stretch the meager resources of the early exploration phase, which could lead to the prioritization of the capital or territorial expansion at the expense of the colonists... And the warrior caste may be apolitical for now, but what happens if the merchants loose the means to pay these mercenaries? Could the (far) future herald these mercenaries as the third political force in the exquisite dance that is the Minnerian government?

It is certainly a good point. As we've seen an admiral is not above dipping a webbed toe into the waters of politics.

As the Minnerians have the Anglers trait they are less adaptable than most and need those wet worlds so I snapped them up as soon as I could.

Congrats on already finding three habitable planets and aliens! It seems that the Minnerians already got a lot done and that the age of exploration is continuing! I hope that you manage those colonies well and continue to grow the Union under the rule of Abibaal. I also like the writing you've got so far, and how it's descriptive of not only the political landscape but also the worlds that the Minnerians have discovered. The only thing that's throwing me off a little is some of the spelling, but that's so minor it can easily be missed.

Thank you, glad you are enjoying it!

The exploration phase is one of my favourite elements of the game so it is a joy to write - and I'll watch the spelling!

Heh, I always wait a long time to build those corvettes. Not always wise.

I have to say I'm particularly fond of the look of the Aquatic corvettes - it was part of what drew me to playing them actually!

Nice world building!

Are there whales on their home planet? Or space whales a translation?

Thank you!

There are no whales as such (that is a translation convention) but there are large marine vertebrates and cephalopod analogues.

Qart Lepi (the colony world) I see as being very Triassic like so they have creatures akin to ichthyosaurs and placodonts (the Earth Triassic fauna was easily as bizarre as any alien world!)

 

[Bored Student1414]

A new AAR from @RossN! The Minnerians are now at war with an alien empire they know little about shortly after First Contact which is always frightening.

 

[Von Acturus]

An Interstellar war already? That was quite unexpected! I'm curious to find about that mysterious factor that drove the Quenti to go to war so soon over a puny system...

 

[DukeShasta]

Interesting AAR so far. Abibaal's decision to build up the navy was, in hindsight, a fortunate move. As Aquasparky pointed out, you do have some spelling issues that are sometimes jarring, but they are minor enough that it's a small concern. Looking forward to seeing the Quenti get their asses handed back to them (hopefully)

Are you dropping the Stardancers AAR, tho? Or are you going to juggle two AARs at the same time?

 

[Aquasparky]

Tensions are getting high and war is commencing... It was a good thing that Abibaal thought to build up the army beforehand before anything got dirty. I just hope that the minnerians will be able to defeat the quenti. They're also militaristic, so they'll have decently powerful armed forces. It also seems that there are some internal conflicts going on as well, with the factions forming and all. I just hope that the minnerians can stay together when the war commences.

 

[Bibliophile]

(There was another even more pressing reason for the Quenti haste, one entirely internal to their empire. However it would take the Minnerians many years to become aware of this element...)

Do they have that origin where their homeworld is going to explode? That was the first thing that came to mind when I read that. I could be wrong, but that is going to be in the back of my mind until the reason for their haste is elaborated upon.
Keep up the good work.

 

[HistoryDude]

And a war begins... will things go well or horribly?

Allies might be useful...

 

[Nikolai]

Hopefully the war will go well. I would advice caution and build up as much as possible before going on the offensive.

 

[Specialist290]

Glad to see you writing again, Ross

As always, I'm impressed by the level of detail you've put into crafting the Minnerians' backstory. I've always thought that scene-setting and teasing out those fine-grained details is something you do particularly well.

Events certainly seem to have escalated rapidly, haven't they? They barely been in contact for a decade, and already the Minnerians and the Quenti are at war. Hopefully the Quenti's bark will prove to be worse than their bite...

 

[slothinator]

I love the worldbuilding you've set up for the Minnerians! I look forward to seeing how they develop.
They haven't been too lucky with their neighbors, we can only hope that the first war will deter the aggression of others