Presenting: The Naucine (part 1)

   "Their Council membership is a continuing stain on the Milieu!" howled Wol'arr, his mien indicating moderate anger per com-main's universal emotional context indication.  "The Arr'yoo call upon the noble Naucine to support our petition to censure and revoke Xylanthan membership!" Sincere respect.

   It was, for former ambassador to the Milieu Aperiodic Tesselation, the same drama on a different day.  After three centuries' tenure as the Naucine representative on the Milieu's Coordinating Council, 'Aper' had become quite accustomed to the various cries of outrage, demands, mortal grievances, and false appeals to nobility and enlightenment various exo-species engaged in to achieve their ends.  What had been surprising was that the tedious litany had mysteriously continued, even increased in volume, since his resignation.

  Quite perplexing.

  Fortunately, private life had freed him from the constraints of formality and political language - he was free to speak his mind, and had told Wol'arr, on no less than three separate occasions, that the CHO-main Canidus was an overdramatic lout.  The fourth was fast approaching.

  It was all a game, no less so than the game Seq they had gathered for, and one that Aper could not seem to escape from.  "I'm afraid the naucine position on the subject of Xylanthan membership is unchanged."  Mild regret, ambivalence.  "They are the natural, evolutionary result of a unique conflux of circumstances.  While we find the duplicitous circumstances surrounding their arrangement with the CHO-main Locus of their world, it cannot be ignored that they chose nnot to obliterate their aggressors."  Minor apology.

  He led his hirsute guest towards the game room.  Aper was playing host to officials and liasions for the Arr'yoo, Ixion, and the Forged.  It was only natural that Wol'arr would attempt to canvass for support; indeed it was almost required.  The Arr'yoo were not yet advanced enough to be seriously considered for a council seat without sponsorship; even with sponsorship, it would be an uphill battle.  They had only recently begun terraforming efforts to colonize their system, to make use of the gravitational intra-system transport network they were fortunate enough to have, to overturn an economic system premised on scarcity by mining asteroids for resources.  They were generally considered too technologically undeveloped for sponsorship or mentoring; yet first contact had been made in an effort to stave off Nihil incursions.

  However, Wol'arr's entreaty was doomed to failure from the outset.  The Ixion were too busy as the literal workhorse of the Milieu to take on mentoring a pre-interstellar species or to take on more conflict.  The Forged were still coming to terms with their comparatively recent and sudden ascension into galactic civilization.  The Naucine were generally loathe to interfere at any level, and despite the friendship Aper shared with Wol'arr, the Naucine had been opposed to contact in the absence of any evidence of an impending Nihil experiment.

  "Moreover, they are the sovereign power of their world, by their own means.  Whatever else may be true, this we must respect, or else there is no cause to respect the authority of any species anywhere, let alone that of the Milieu."  This they all knew; it had been the final argument that sealed Xylanthan membership.  There was no justification in opposing the Nihil Cooperative if the Ascendant Milieu did the same, whatever their good intentions may be.

  "Forgive my outburst; it is a frustrating situation," Wol'arr growled.

  "Overdramatic lout."

  Wol'arr laughed heartily as he did every time.  Despite the circumstances, the Arr'yoo had a vivaciousness of spirit that naucine admired and appreciated.  He had also been a quick study at Seq, though predictable at times.  The game room was one of the perks of private life; besides having a private vessel at his disposal, he maintained spacious quarters at the Milieu Core, including a large anti-grav room for Seq, and no shortage of interesting players.

  Seq had surprisingly become a cultural export of the Naucine.  In its original incarnation, Seq was a board game, originally played on an ocean floor or convenient coral reef, and later on moulded sand and dirt.  Bits of bone, shell, teeth, scales, twigs, feathers, and so forth served as pieces, generally representing the creatures they came from.  The game play represented interactions between ecosystems and evolution as animals competed for territory, resources, and survival.  It was a game they did not play to win, but one in which both players strove to achieve elegance and beauty in their play.

  It was a runaway hit on the galactic stage.  Once crews aboard ships had picked up how to play, the game had spread like wildfire.  Among the CHO-main Varietas especially Seq enjoyed wild popularity, leading to public game spaces and portable technology for holographically rendering terrain and pieces.  And then slowly, the game changed.

  In CHO-main hands (paws, grippers, etc.) new pieces were introduced.  Rather than animals, they were various sentients, military and civilian units that interacted.  No longer did gameplay represent ecologies and evolution, but various racial civilizations and their interactions and development.

  The Naucine were honored beyond belief.  For their game of evolution to itself evolve into something greater through contact with others was a purity of form like unto art.  Seq saw renewed interest among the Naucine as new pieces, sets, and stages were available.  At its highest levels, Seq represented differing ideologies engaging in discourse and debate.

  The game space projected a variety of biomes - although his game space was capable of nanot construction, he had employed holographic representations out of respect for the Forged liasion - from verdant forests, complete with simulated wildlife, to unforgiving tundra.

  Aper bowed to his guests who were already seated.  "Welcome friends."  Joy, gratitude.  "I present to you, Wol'arr, representative of the Arr'yoo."  He gestured around the room, first to the quadruped centauroid, "Krellin, officer of the Ix embassy," then to the shiny, ambiguous CHO-main, "Teodore, junior ambassador of the Forged," and finally to another naucine, "Concentric Tangents, my... nephew I suppose."  Greetings were exchanged as the holographic displays to select pieces appeared before each player.  "Conc was hatched several generations after me from the same creche.  We have hopes that he will take up the position of ambassador one day," Aper explained conversationally.  His conversation with Wol'arr had given him inspiration for this round of Seq; his selection was entirely of an identical type.

  "If you have any discretion in the matter Conc," Krellin's bass rumbled, "I suggest joining the explorer's corps.  More interesting sights, fewer repeated complaints."  They all chuckled.

  Teodore's ambiguous frame pulsed amorphously as he moved his arm, making his decisions quickly and decisively.  "Sometimes the complaints are interesting in their own right though," he offered.

  Aper glanced at his nephew with one of his lateral eyes.  Conc had gestured his good natured amusement, but seemed deeply engaged in making his selections, considering units from numerous and varied sets.  "However I may best serve the people," had been his demurred reply as he finished his selection.

Presenting the Xylanth

Dlain ran.  In his thirty-some years of life, he could not recall ever exerting himself so hard.  It was an odd thought to have cross his oxygen-starved mind.  Is this my life flashing before me?  It was getting harder to see, harder to avoid the thick roots that meandered across the forest floor, harder to pick a path around the large trees that seemed to unaccountably spring up in front of him.  It was getting harder to hear too; between the sound of his labored breathing and the staccato pulse of his heat beat, Dlain was barely aware of Nelston, somewhere in the murky fringe of his periphery, madly scrambling for his life as well.

Dlain's entire being burned with agony; his muscles ached and threatened to tear apart under the strain to run faster and faster.  For the past fifteen years, he'd worked in the ore mines; dangerous, back-breaking labor day in and day out.  He was young, strong, and fit, due to a combination of xylanthan chemicals and rigorous labor.  His lungs had never burned for air as they did now.  For fifteen years he'd been a proper, obedient, dirt-shoveling, Darmok-fearing slave to the meat-fucking plants.  Then he'd met Nelston.  And now he was running for his life.

Dlain twisted, pushed out with his arm at the last moment to avoid colliding with a tree, nearly fell anyway, and scrambled to keep running.  How long had he been running now?  Had they gotten away? Just how fast could those plants move anyway? He didn't dare stop to look.  The future didn't lay behind him.  He had to keep running after it.

All his life, he'd played by the rules.  He knew his place in the universe and kept his head down; born a slave, he'd live a slave's life, and then he'd die a slave.  His spirit would find rest in Darmok's wide arms; his mortal remains would continue to be a slave, a puppet for some newly sprouted Xylanth.  This was the circle of life as all on Sylv knew it.

Then he'd met Nelston.  An immigrant from Skrom, he'd moved across the border to settle in Farling's fiefdom.  Under Xylanthan rule, the three human kingdoms, their various nobility, and assorted landowners were all irrelevant.  All belonged to the plants, and the humans kept what they had by the graces of the Xylanth.  But there was no mistake that all were subject equally to The Green Law; nobles and lords were slaves too, just better dressed than most.

But the humans did hold onto one thing, one thing even the Puppeteers could not take away except in death: their hatred for one another.  The undying hatred the three kingdoms held for one another had not fallen to the Xylanthan forces and lived on, nurtured by distrust and differences.  It was a hatred that ran deep and and took root like an ancient oak.

So Nelston, a stranger from another land, had not even received what little welcome there remained to give.  He was treated poorly, when he wasn't totally ignored, and would probably have continued to be an outcast had he not met Dlain.  Ever practical, Dlain had decided to give the foreigner a fair shake - and they'd become fast friends.  Not long after, Dlain discovered Nelston was in the business of bootlegging liqour, a contraband substance that had led to his quick exit from his previous home; that, and a misunderstanding concerning the local prefect's daughter.

Nelston was considerably more welcome in town soon after.  It was foul, it was flavorless, and it was illegal under The Green Law, but nothing took the edge off a life of slavery in the mines like hard liquor.  That it constituted a minor rebellion was an additional bonus.  Alcohol was forbidden due to the deleterious effect it had on the condition of a body.  As was nearly always the case under The Green Law the punishment was death.  However, it was usually possible to bribe quisling enforcers to look the other way; love of alcohol and corruption hadn't been forgotten under Xylanthan rule either.

Deep in their cups, Nelston had spun a tale of an island far to the south-east, an island nation of humans untouched by the Xylanthan dominion.  An island where humans still lived free.  Everyone knew of it; no one believed it.  The island did exist, as did the human nation - records of its existence, as well as maps, remained in libraries and archives.  Their ancestors had known of the islanders, but thought it a waste of time to conquer.  But no one truly believed  that the islanders remained, or retained their sovereignty.

It had led to talk of poaching.  Capturing wildlife or seed before the Xylanth did whatever it was that made them healthier and addictive.  To cultivate and grow food so that one day, the children of man might reclaim their sovereign right to personhood - this was the unspoken dream of every human in the three kingdoms.  Poaching  was a capital crime, punishable by summary death and implantation.

And now he ran for his life, Nelston somewhere alongside him, chased by a Xylanthan ranger.  Their attempt at poaching had met with little success all morning; it had been impossible to find game or fruit bearing plants.  They'd finally spotted a rock hopper when Dlain had caught a curious scent in the air: sickly sweet with a hint of fiery spice.

Xylanthan pherotongue.  He'd never learned enough to understand it, didn't have a head for scents, but it'd struck him that something was angry.  In the end, it didn't really matter: they'd been found out, trespassing deep in a forbidden forest, attempting to poach.

They ran.

No amount of talking or bribing would save them; only the fleetness of foot and wit could now.

And without warning, Dlain heard Nelston cry out, and the sound of rough impacts.  The fool had tripped.  That will slow down pursuit, Dlain thought as he kept running.  A moment later though, he was skidding to a stop and scrabbling back towards Nelston, prone on the ground, arm outstretched, calling for help.

"Up fool, up!" Dlain could barely get the words out.  "It'll be on us any mo-"

There was nothing behind them.  No sound of chase, no mysteriously moving foliage.  Only the sound silence marred by heavy breathing.

"Balls of the blood god, I thought I was done for!" Nelston wheezed.  "Do you think we lost it?"

Dlain shook his head, unable to speak.  At long last he looked around - in their mad dash, they'd gone even deeper into the forest, and he had no idea where they were.  More fool me for listening to you and stopping to save you! he cursed in his mind.  But he couldn't smell that distinctive scent of rotten flesh that heralded the presence of a Xylanth.  "We should get out of here," he managed at last.

"Trees thin out a bit over that way," pointed Nelston.  "Might be the edge of the forest.  Could make a run for the nearest town, hide out. What do you think?"

I think it sounds familiar, thought Dlain.  Still, it was their best, only, option at the moment.  He nodded, stood up and helped Nelston to his feet. Their was a vague sense of disquiet in the back of his mind as they walked, trying to regain their strength.  He brushed it off as paranoia; the whole day had been terrible enough to spoil any good luck they now found.

And then they saw the Xylanth in front of them, no more than 20 meters away, at the edge of the wood.  Dlain whirled around as Nelston took another shocked step forwarded.  There were more behind them.  He couldn't tell if their original pursuer was among them; they all looked alike to him.  He cursed his lax guard, even as he sniffed the air.  How did I miss them? How did I miss this overwhelming stench?  All at once, the stench of death and rot hit him, and with it understanding.

He'd been too exhausted.  Starved for air, his body reacted naturally for more air once he had relaxed.  Damnit! I've been breathing through my mouth this whole time! No wonder I couldn't smell anything! He took another breath, nearly retched.  The scent was too overpowering to be caused by a handful of Xylanth.  Had they stumbled upon a vineyard? Were these Xylanth protecting a creche of seedlings, rows of newly implanted growing and feeding on scarecrow-like corpses?

It was too much to process, too overwhelming.  It didn't really matter anyway, as his fate, their fates, calmly strode forward.  A pulse of rapidly shifting scents seemed to swirl about them.  They are discussing something.  Is there still hope? He'd never bothered to learn the Xylanth pherotongue.  Few did.  But many could speak, after fashion, the body - signing language the Xylanth also used, particularly with humans.  Dlain was not such a one.  He resolved to learn as much pherotongue as the local administrator would teach him, and vine language, if he survived.  He took a step back towards Nelston.  Survival was all that mattered now.

"I'm sorry Nelston," he whispered.  "But this is all your fault."  In a single motion, Dlain shook free the knife he'd had on his wrist and stabbed Nelston in the chest.  The knife was heavy, but blunt from use.  Nearly everyone carried one to cut dried meat, fruits and bread, cloth and twine.  He hadn't been sure it would cut Nelston's throat.

The motion had turned Nelston to face Dlain, shock and confusion playing across his face as blood seeped from the wound and his mouth; Dlain had missed the heart and punctured a lung.  It was not the quick death he'd hoped to deal. He stabbed again, aiming at the side of the neck.  "Just die damn you!" he shouted, all the fear and fury he'd felt bursting out at once.  He grabbed Nelston by the shoulder, turned him to face the Xylanth, and kicked him to the ground.  Blood quickly began to pool beneath the twitching body, coloring the ground.  Dlain dropped his knife, dropped to one knee, bowing parallel to the ground with arms outstretched in either direction.  It was the only body sign, the only vine language, he knew.

Submission.

The Xylanth had stopped moving, had watched the curious human drama play out before them, and now seemed to be debating its meaning.  "Please!" Dlain begged.  "It was his idea! He's the one you want! I am loyal, I have seen nothing, done nothing! Please take him and let me go!"  He knew the plants understood the human tongue.  He continued to kneel in submission; he didn't dare look up.

The silence seemed to drag on interminably.  Still, he couldn't risk looking up, risk communicating defiance.  He knew it wouldn't matter anyway; he couldn't read their movements, and there would be nothing else to see.

At long last he heard the lone xylanth in front of him pick up Nelston's corpse, heard it dragging it towards the clearing.  He dropped his head and arms in relief; or rather, would have.  It was then he felt the vines wrapped around his tense being, keeping him in submission.  With a strength he could no believe plants could, he felt himself hauled upright and carried forward.  Fear washed over like a frozen wave, sapping him of energy and resolve.  He couldn't cry, couldn't shout in protest.

He soon found himself beside an empty scarecrow, a metal frame that would support his corpse while a seedling grew, tunneling through his remains and wrapping itself around his bones.  A quisling stood beside it, though he couldn't see Nelston anywhere.  The quisling, one of the humans who worked with the Xylanth, seemed to understand and explained helpfully, "You ruined his body, so they can't use it for a new crop.  Still useful though - makes a great fertilizer for the new thing they are growing."

The quisling glanced at him askance to see if he was listening.  "It's actually quite exciting you know! For what it's worth, you and your friend will be working together.  In a way, as it were."  They were strapping Dlain into the scarecrow; he found he had no energy to resist, was glad that he would be dead soon, before the seed was implanted.  "They're growing some kind of giant vine, bigger than we've seen, one that will reach beyond the sky into the heavens!  Well, they call it 'space'.  That's what the fertilizer is for, some gigantic tree and vine."  The quisling continued amiably, oblivious to Dlan being bent over backward to expose his face and throat to the sky.  "They wanted me to tell you.  You'll be among the first Xylanth to head up there! Imagine that," he said with awe.  "Isn't that exciting?"

Dlain found his view of the sky eclipsed by a dark figure - the xylanth was preparing to implant him! Wait! I'm not dead yet! he tried to shout, found that he couldn't even though his mouth was held open.  He tried to struggle to show that he was alive and found that he couldn't move a muscle. Suddenly he understood - the scarecrow.  A small blade was part of its design and severed the spinal column, ensuring the corpse was dead.

Dlain was dead; he just hadn't died yet.

As the xylanth bent over him, his sense of vision blurred.  He could feel its vine tendrils burrowing deeper and deeper into his throat, felt the seedling latch onto the end of his trachea and begin to send tiny tendrils through his veins and arteries.  The pain was unbearable.  A small, distant part of his mind wondered if his spinal cord had not been fully severed, or if certain nerves still communicated with the portion leading to his brain.

Mostly his mind screamed in pain.

He could feel the tendrils pushing out from behind his eyes, trying to push them free of their sockets.

Death couldn't come quickly enough.

Introducing: The Soven

The Soven

Forced Evolutionary Crisis | Aquatic-terrestrial omnivorous owl-frogs | wtf

unaffiliated | hostile xenophobes

The Tragic (Devolved)

The Soven are defined by their deep, unabiding hatred for all alien life.  It has united the entire species, defined their cultural identity, and drives all technological progress they have made.  "Soven" in the native tongue translates roughly as "unquenchable vitriol."  The Soven do not tolerate any other alien civilization, whether Nihil, Milieu, or unaffiliated.  They hate all, equally, with the full measure of their being.  In all the galaxy, the depth and sheer ferocity of their hatred is unrivaled.

Curiously, opinions of the Soven range from pity and sympathy to perfect ambivalence; no one especially hates the Soven.  Their history is at once both short and filled with tragedy; the Soven are relatively recently evolved and become members of the galactic community.  Their history traces back to a species called the Verd.

The Soven homeworld, Veril, was once a typical main-sequence planet, well suited to the development of life.  Lush forests, wide plains, mountains and lowlands, rivers, lakes, and oceans, Veril was similar to Earth, or any other homeworld where CHO-mains have evolved.  Eventually, the Verd emerged as the dominant, civilizing species on Veril.  A squat, flightless, mammal-avian species, the Verd resembled a pouchless, owl-penguin-kangaroo hybrid.  Beakless carnivores, they were well suited to hunting and evading across most of Veril's biomes.

Unfortunately, Veril is located within Nihil space.  To the Ra'u who discovered and studied the Verd, they were simply another of countless main-sequence species.  Evolved from aquatic life to spread across land, congregate into groups, develop separation and specialization of tasks, the Verd were like any number of other pedantic, pedestrian, and entirely predictable species to civilize and reach out toward the stars.

One more, or fewer, mattered infinitesimally little.

It was boring, yet presented an opportunity to answer intriguing questions.  Why did evolution proceed from water to land? Would it be possible to drive evolution from land to water? Would it be possible for a post-civilization species, one that had largely stopped evolving, to undergo drastic evolution again?

Such results could be of far greater interest and importance.

The Ra'u experiment team in charge sent icy comets on collision trajectories with Veril.  Verd technology had not yet progressed to a point of being able to detect, let alone defend against, such collisions.  The results were devastating.  The regular increase of large volumes of ice meant an overall increase in planetary surface water.  Long term atmospheric blotting lead to altered weather patterns and large scale die-offs of plant life and disrupted ecologies.  86% of the planetary surface came to be covered in water.  In the aftermath, the Verd were no more, and the Soven emerged.

The Soven resemble a neckless cross between an owl and a frog.  Their stumpy heads are dominated by large, expressive eyes, and is capable of turning nearly 180 degrees.  They have powerful legs and slightly webbed feet, suitable for jumping and swimming.  Their slightly over-long arms end in 3 primary digits and 2 opposable thumbs.  their body is covered in a short, coarse fur that is oiled, much like a penguin.  They have tufted ears sensitive to pressure changes; fine hearing, and instinctively orient and navigate themselves by reference to magnetic fields.  They have a short broad beak suitable for omnivorous diet and shellfish.  The beak is sharp, but not keratinous; it is a protusion of exposed skull, making cold temperatures (such as is now found through much of Veril), foraging, and even eating (to an extent) painful.

Early Soven civilization is built on the ruins of Verd society, and focused on escaping the hellish life of their planet.  Upon ascent to the galactic stage, the Soven discovered the circumstances of their development.  They also learned that the Milieu had discovered the Ra'u plans regarding Veril, but rather than intervene, had becomed mired in inaction due to risk-benefit assessment studies, political maneuvaring, and policy and jurisdiction debates.  The Soven hate all because no one came to their aid - those who did not take part had sat idle when they could have stopped the planetary calamity.  They do not trust any alien species - they are all complicit, or would be, or mean to do some other harm.  Since ascending to space, the Soven have spent their time and resources on developing weapons and technology to wipe out all other species; they consider this the only way their species will be safe again.

They have thus far been spectacularly unsuccessful, which has only fueled their hatred and paranoia.  Most other species avoid Soven space, a rather small sphere of influence itself, either on principle so as not to aggravate the unfortunates, or else because attacks by Soven spacecraft, while not especially threatening, are annoying and inconvenient.  The Ra'u are completely ambivalent to the existence of the Soven, and are content to leave them alone despite constituting a (minor) threat within Nihil space.

There are some who contend that the Soven crisis constituted an experiment, on a wider scale, to see what the Milieu would do when their values were threatened.  Rather than wipe out the Soven, which the Ra'u could manage easily, the continued existence of the Soven serves as a subtle insult to the Milieu, a statement of the Milieu's true nature.

Introducing: The Grek

The Grek

Metallo-Organic Life | Peaceful Herbivores

Nihil Cooperative

"Titanium Titans" (Statues)

To understand the Grek, one must see their world Gol.  To begin with, the planetary orbit is created and bounded by the movements and interactions of three suns; Gol itself orbits a fixed point of empty space.  It is thought that material condensed into orbital gas giants more quickly than could accrete into a central sun, with the result being the central mass being largely divide among three proto-stars and a single mineral rich planet in the center.

As a planetary body surrounded by a trinary star system, Gol has never known night.  Photosynthesis, in one form or another, is the dominant form of energy production, especially with a surplus of ready minerals to serve as biological electron carriers.  Most of the water present on Gol is found in the thick and super-saturated atmosphere.  There are no bodies of water on the surface; subterranean aquifers exist, but are not suitable to supporting aquatic life.

A side effect of the mineral-rich soil (levels toxic to most life forms anywhere else) has been the absorption and incorporation of heavy metals into growing tissue: flower petals like thin aluminum, tree trunks with the tensile strength of titanium girders.  Life which did not evolve to overcome such defenses quickly died out - herbivorous life had to develop the ability to process such tissue for nutrients, as well as stronger teeth, bones, and muscles needed to ingest it.  Carnivorous life had to develop similarly to overcome the armor plating of their prey.  And thus the cycle of the evolutionary arms-race spun in turn.

All life on Gol utilizes some form of photosynthesis to a varying degree for energy, even predators.  The Grek are photosynthetic (thermosynthetic, as it were, utilizing IR radiation) herbivores.  They are peaceful and curious, seeking first and foremost to find life similar to themselves on other worlds.  Although they don't generally approve of the Ra'u and their habit of experimenting on worlds and other species without regard for their well being or consequences, neither are they comfortable denouncing such actions.  This is because the Gol trinary, and by extension Gol and all life on the planet including the Grek, are the result of a Ra'u experiment in system formation and evolution.  The Ra'u are directly responsible for the existence of the Grek, and they are grateful, whatever the original intentions of the Ra'u.  Although the Milieu has extended an invitation to the Grek, the Grek has declined and declared unanimously for the Nihil Cooperative.  Such is their loyalty.  They remain on peaceful, if not necessarily always friendly, terms with the Milieu races.

The Grek are a bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, 6 limbed race.  Their overall form is a large, metal skinned CHO-main; however, they have two, smaller, raptor-like arms on their chest - possibly to help ancestral Grek climb to reach softer leaves and sunlight.  They see in the visible light spectra, as well as electromagnetic and ultra-violet spectra.  They are hairless, noseless, and have a single, large, featureless white eye (but still manage to have depth perception).  The two genders are nearly indistinguishable visually - gender differences appear to be EM or UV spectra related phenomena.

Although renowned ship builders, they are not often found off-world - the peculiarities of their system make interstellar travel difficult, and physiologically they are unaccustomed to gravity higher than 0.6g.  They require large, bulky exo-suits to support their higher mass.  Still, curiosity and adventurous yearnings do lead Grek to travel the stars in search of the unknown.

Grek names are incomprehensible EM frequency sequences.  They have taken to adopting CHO-main names or words that they find pleasing by some unknown criteria, in order to better interact with other species.

Introducing: The Naucine

The Naucine

Aquatic Nautilus (Terrestrial Precursor) | Monoclonal, Epigenetic

Ascendent Milieu

"The Golden ratio" (sea weeds)

The Naucine are a primarily aquatic species, resembling a nautilus mounted on a four legged trunk - they have two clusters of three strong, prehensile tentacles extending laterally from the upper spiral shell.  In each cluster, one tentacle ends in an armored claw, reminiscent of a lobster.  The other two end in a trifurcated manipulator.  The central trunk extends downwards from the spiral groove, slightly off center, and bears a single eye in each of the orthogonal directions; a short, tough leg extends from the lower end of the trunk in each of the diagonal directions.  The mouth lies at the bottom of the trunk, protected by a masticating beak.  Fossil records are sparse - naucine internal structure is a combination of chitin and cartilege, generally leaving only hardened shells after death, if anything.

As with most forms of life, ancestral naucine began life as a purely aquatic life form - they most likely lacked legs and moved by a combination of expelling gas or water and flagellation of their tentacles.  Their evolution as a species was progressing, slowly, towards a terrestrial species when it terminated at the hybrid stage permanently.  Thus, naucine have short legs suitable for balance, strength, and slow movement but not more dextrous activity due to a lack of joints or segmentation.  They are capable of breathing in water as well as atmosphere.

The cessation of Naucine evolution is due to their most unique trait: The Naucine genome is both highly regulated and highly conserved - it is highly resistant to change and capable of self repair and error checking.  Modern naucine are immune to viruses, bacteria, toxins, and generally any sort of inernalized environmental hazard.  They heal quickly and are possibly age-immortal.  In fact, the DNA-equvalent triple helix compound is so resistant to change, naucine are essentially monoclonal - every individual's DNA is identical, differing only in epigenetic modification governing expression, rate, and post transcription processing.  It is estimated that there are no more than five different sequences in the entire naucine gene pool, all single point substitutions, and no more than two of which are not a redundant change in coding.

Evolution in this species occurred very slowly and always under highly selective pressure (if it occurred at all; there is some scholarly debate, due to a general lack of evidence and the enormous span of time involved).  The discovery of tools and metal working effectively supplanted any further possible evolution as individuals began to form the rudiments of a civilization around specialization and protection from predators.

Naucine are highly intelligent; ancestral naucine used readily available ore veins and underwater thermal vents to shape metal tools and armor against predators - Metal rods, spears, blades, and what appear to be shields and bowl-like armor or helmets.  On land, without the anti-gravity bouyancy of water, the Naucine were forced to refine their forging technicques, developing alloys, thinner and lighter products, and more complex, moving parts.  By working together, naucine society bloomed with communal creches, protected sanctuaries, and readily accessible resources.  Working together, they were able to build lasting sanctuaries and survive both on land and in water.

Modern naucine are skilled craftsmen and artisans.  In art and all else the Naucine strive for creativity, innovation, efficiency, and perfection.  It is the story of their species and like unto a religion for them.  They are avid intellectuals, be it science, philosophy, or art, and capable warriors and strategists when the need arises.  In the Milieu, the Naucine are among the more liberal species, and enjoy exploring and observing new species.  They strong proponents of non-interference and prefer to be contacted than to make first contact.  They have colonized several systems surrounding their homeworld.  Naucine craft are typically ringed, geometric structures, multiply butressed internally, making them quite resilient.  They are generally filled with a thick, neutral gas suitable to naucine physiology and movement.  The hull is partially biological and secretes are harden chitin substance to quickly seal breaches.

Naucine names generally follow mathematical equations that describe geometric structures or graph curves that they consider beautiful or elegant.

Introducing: The Xylanth

Oops.  Well, in my defense, it's been relatively busy recently between taking on new students, dropping old students, and analyzing new topics/tests for students.  And also, I've been grappling with plot points (or lack, thereof).  But I rejoice! I've made good headway recently!

In fact, I've been writing up the various alien species that will be present (aside: someday it will be interesting to present books as an interactive wiki) in the galaxy; not just alien life, but a species that has risen to civilization and beyond.

It's not as simple as just doodling some crazy looking thing, slapping a name on it, and calling it a day (well, maybe for some).  Life - sentient, civilized, technological and advanced life - raises quite a few problems beyond the immediate chemistry of self assembly.  You wonder what form it takes, and consequently how it perceives and interacts with the world at large.  You wonder why they develop civilization - it's not every top dog species that does so.  On Earth, we frequently point to division of labor and specialization as being advantageous for survival (and thus traits that lead proto-humans to socialize and civilize as being evolutionarily advantaged).  That is not always the case.  In some sense, if you ARE the top dog species, that is a disincentive to gather and form a society; more frequently, it is an underdog species that forms groups, develops into a civilization, and thus becomes top of the pyramid.

Well, I say frequently, but really, all I can talk about is what humans have done.

There are other questions too: development of technology (particularly tools and metalwork), religion, societal rules, interactions with other planetary life, and so forth.  Not all of it is useful or necessary.

Anyway, each of these gives me a firmer understanding of what was initially a nebulous idea for an alien species, and the role it will play.  They're pretty fun to write up too, something of a short story in and of themselves.  Today I present the first: The Xylanth.  (I have written 3 more of some 12 or so)

The Xylanth
Plant Based lifeform | Scavenger
Ascendent Milieu
"The Puppeteer" (Meat Fuckers)

The Xylanth are a curious species of mobile plant.  They are evolved from a carnivorous vine, similar in nature to the Rafflesia; seedlings take root in a corpse (preferentially; a living host animal can serve, but are more apt to kill the seedling, even if weakened; any living host is killed as the seedling matures) which serves as a manipulable, mobile frame for the growing plant as well as a ready source of food.  As the seedling matures, root-like tendrils pierce through the corpse and intertwine with the skeleton, allowing the juvenile to draw nutrients and move about.  By the time the new xylanthan reaches maturity, photosynthesis becomes the primary source of energy; the corpse will have been eaten away and replaced with a twisted mass of plant life.  The outer most vines will harden and change in appearance according to the specific race (varietal) of Xylanth - fire resistant hardwood varietals exist.

The Xylanth do not naturally compete with one another, particularly as they are mobile.  They are capable of moving about to seek sunlight and corpses (even hunting live animals to do so).  However, the same mobility made attaining civilization difficult.

Initially, xylanth grouped to better hunt animals for corpses and to clear away vegetation for unimpeded sunlight.  This naturally encouraged settling.  Additionally, the best source of corpses were battlefields for the wars incessantly fought between the planet's various CHO-main (human) factions.  These corpses became prized for their useful shape, as well as being frequently found with armor and weapons.  Eventually, xylanth that worked together were selected for due to their numerical advantages in defending themselves against the local CHO-mains.

The human nations of Sylv warred against one another incessantly; they became terminally stalled at a medieval-equivalent level of development due to multiple large scale wars, each of which resulted in massive population die-offs, starvation, poverty, and general lawlessness.  The generation of new knowledge was little in demand as laborers, not philosophers and thinkers, were needed.  Progress diminished, then disappeared entirely.  The discovery of Xylanthan "corpse puppets" swiftly led to the first unification of the human nations against a common enemy.  It was also the last.

The Xylanthans won overwhelmingly.

Distrust followed on the heels of defeat; how could plants defeat the combined might of the human nations? The humans burned away large tracts of land, never realizing they were creating fertile new grounds for the Xylanth; every human soldier that fell became a Xylanthan terror.  Soon, hardwood and fire resistant varietals appeared amongst the Xylanth.  All the while, the humans scorched and salted farmlands, scores of peasents and farmers and poor drafted into the armies died, leaving no one and nowhere to grow and harvest crops.  Starvation and plague ran rampant alongside bickering and blame in the aftermath, and on the brink of extinction, still the humans sought to kill one another.

This would not do.  Rather than permit the obliteration of the human race (and thus, such wonderful corpses), the Xylanth mediated a peace, a pseudo-symbiotic relationship with mankind: the human nations pledged to turn over their dead to the Xylanth, to supply metal ores and teach the secrets of metallurgy, and in kind the Xylanth provided the human nations with agricultural goods, livestock, and maintained a peace between the three nations of man.  The food the Xylanth provided was both delicious and nutritious - the humans soon found themselves in better health and living longer than they had before.  But the Xylanthan foodstuffs, grown or husbanded by their techniques, was a shackle to bind mankind forevermore to the Xylanth - laced with addictive chemicals, the humans soon found themselves dependent on the Xylanth for their continued survival.  They could not grow their own food, did not desire such meagre produce as they could manage, and poaching was punishable by death.  The humans led longer, healthy, peaceful lives, and the Xylanth ensured themselves a continued supply of superior corpses.

A symbiotic slavery.

Membership to the Milieu was granted on the grounds that the Xylanth constitued a smbiotic civilization.  They maintained a peace amongst the sentient civilizations of their home world and, not the least, kept what would otherwise be considered a Pandoran species of human firmly under control.    Conveniently ignored was the matter of slavery by chemical addiction on a planetary scale and the role of the symbionts in the Xylanthan life cycle.  In spite of the peace they profess to maintain, the Xylanth care little about the frequent skirmishes that occur along the outer borders; far better to let human nature create long-standing grievances and feuds, the better to prevent humans from ever reuniting under one banner.  Their admittance was awkward then, to say the least, and considered something of debacle in the Milieu's history by various member species, especially CHO-main varieties.

Xylanth "see" in the IR/UV spectrum; the exact organs by which it does so have not been identified, but scholars generally agree that the flowers which sprout from the eye sockets are not eyes, but rather mouths - xylanth communicate primarily via chemical-pheromone signals.  They are also proficient at a form of body-sign communication (Xyll), which is the primary means by which they communicate with humans on Sylv.  They are capable of processing auditory signals, but are incapable of replicating them.  Identifying marks of individuality and gender appear in the IR/UV spectrum, and is thought to play a role in "speaking" Xyll, at least between Xylanth when they choose to do so.  The similarities between Xyll and Commain expedited first contact between the Xylanth and the Milieu.

The humans of Sylv had made a practice of identifying individual xylanth by a description of scent, such as "Droppings which have baked in the sun for two days before breaking open, borne on a breeze."  By some irony, Xylanthan names take the form of descriptive scents and are translated thusly.

We're in the pipe, 5 by 5 (even though that is used incorrectly) [I love semi colons]

His name was "Pancaked My First Try."  It wasn't that his parents didn't love him; as an AIDE the issue of parentage and lineage was sometimes confusing and convoluted.  But in point of fact, he had chosen the name himself.  It was the most significant event in his early life and did as much to shape his personality as it would have his physical form if he had been in the physical world at the time.

Pancake was an AIDE and, in spite of which, felt like an intruder in the digital space; like an outsider who did not belong, he was keenly aware of being awed by the enormity of the digital construct, and of looking for telltale signs of the digital illusion's being.  He was even worried, though not yet paranoid, that other AIDE secretly rejected his presence.  It was deeply disconcerting.

He had expressed as much to the AIDE group a batch sibling had referred him to; a group fascinated by humans, by their quirks and eccentricities, by irrationality itself.  The digital convocation hadn't been difficult to find; it comprised nearly the entire AIDE population, and even quite a few DEhumans.  They essentially met non stop, with members joining or leaving as circumstances or commitments demanded, and analyzed and discussed data relating to emotions and irrational behavior and beliefs.  Pancaked had been a wellspring of interesting data for the group, earning him no small amount of digital cachet, and an active participant in discussions.

In point of fact, he was now inside his physical body, a Pangolin class MFC (mobile factory & carrier) in near Earth orbit.  It was perhaps, he felt, facetious to call it "his" body - all the Pangolins were identical, and he would be uploaded into a new one should this one be destroyed.  Indeed, there was no guarantee that he would be loaded into this particular unit in subsequent missions.  Yet, he felt a certain attachment to it, beyond it being his designated physical body type.

He duly recorded his sensations and observations for further discussion and analysis by the "Artificial Irrationality Group" (as they called themselves).  His first mission in the physical space was generating a large amount of interesting data.  For instance, he was keenly aware of the pull of gravity, despite the fact that  it would be several hours (earth local) before his orbit degraded in atmospheric entry (reentry? He'd thought. But I've never been there before.)  They would finish coordinating drop zones with his batch sibs long before then.  He sent a notification to the VIP in his cargo compartment, an AIDE avatar unit.

#Pancaked My First Try -> Lancer
-We'll be getting the order to commence atmospheric entry any moment now.  Anything I can do for you? Mats, nanites, munitions?

#Lancer (Caith) -> Pancaked My First Try
-5 by 5.  We're good on synthesis stock and munitions, no need to worry about us, thanks.  Have a good run!

#Lancer (Aidan) -> Pancaked My First Try
-We're ready anytime; don't worry, you'll do fine.

The problem was, Pancaked was worrying, in itself a disturbing irrationality.  Their target drop zone was a military research installation, a high priority target.  The strategists believed that a quick strike offered the best chance to neutralizing the target before any experimental technologies could be utilized to mount an effective defense, and to prevent other targets from being alerted; while many believed their new-found technological and material superiority would be overwhelming, they had all agreed to err on the side of caution - they knew from experience that technological superiority did not guarantee victory, and that life on Earth and humankind alike fought tenaciously and ingenuously to stay alive.

It had taken a moment for Pancaked to realize that both the AIDE copilot Caith and he DEhuman pilot Aidan had answered him (a quick diagnostic check showed no errors or malfunctions; peculiar!); he hadn't expected to hear from both.  Although the Autonomous, Intelligent, Digital Entity (AIDE) were faster and more precise in every way than their DEhuman counterparts, they were content to fill more rigorous copilot duties: checking radar, identifying targets, managing munitions and nanite swarms, coordinating communications, aiming and controlling smart wire, and any other tasks that required extremely fine control, fast reactions, and extreme computational speed.

The "Crash Stop" maneuver was one such example.  The Pangolins were like an armored, headless and tailless turtle; reconfigurable heavy armor plating, Material State Energy projectors , a pulse laser turret fore and aft, a pair of customizable heavy weapon mounts, a miniature nanite factory, and cargo compartments to store raw synthesis materials, nanites, and munitions (if needed).  It was a multi-purpose unit; in both space and terrestrial situations, the Pangolin was able to provide long range support; it could rearrange and extend its hexagonal armor plates to provide a shield wall or a bunker, further projecting a Material State Energy shield to protect a large area; it could construct and launch nano swarm projectiles that would break down material and allow the Pangolin to synthesize more swarms, more munitions, or support drones.  Where the arms and legs would be on a tortoise, the Pangolin has compressed ion thrusters; capable of providing thrust for hovering or exiting atmosphere, docking with asteroids, and limited space combat.  If the situation requires, the thrusters can be rotated 90 degrees to enable alternative modes of locomotion.

In a "Crash Stop", a Pangolin enters the atmosphere, dome downwards, and proceeds to fall at terminal velocity towards its designated drop zone.  At a range of 1 kilometer from impact, the Pangolin reverses thrust in a braking maneuver and extends its MSE field.  The MSE field serves as an energy dissipating barrier between the Pangolin and the ground, extending and diverting radially as the Pangolin continually presses against the field, creating an impact crater but (ideally) without impact.

Pancaked had learned first hand, in simulation, that it was not as simple in practice as it was in theory.

The Writing Process

Everyone does it differently.

This is something I knew going in, but hadn't fully grasped upon after starting.  I mean, usually you only deal with the end product; the book reports and essays and such you did in school, those "don't really count."  Because a paper is a paper and a book is a book, right?

I sure hope so, because I am not writing this thing the night before it is due.

It was something that really struck me after looking through some favorite authors' work; in this case, I was looking at the authors of The Tenth Planet, specifically Kathryn Rusch.  I've got the books in paperback, because this was from a time when mp3s were still A Big Deal Gosh Darn It, and while we wrote and read things on the computer screen, the idea of reading (or writing) a book on a computer screen seemed nonsensical.  What are you doing? we'd say.  Print that out.  (If you were my Chinese mother, you'd also make a comment about eyes being more valuable than trees).  The books dealt with... well, I guess I'm still within the statute of limitations for spoilers, so never mind.  But nanotech swarms are a feature of the storyline, so I wanted to brush up on that one again.  I remember liking the first book quite a lot, the second one not as much, and found the third and ending to be rather disappointing.

I know, I pretty much just jinxed myself right there.

Anyway, Rusch also has a number of novellas (which, as everyone knows, are female novels) out.  I was reading her foreword in a sample of a collection of novellas when it really hit me how different the process can be.  She was detailing her experience with a publisher who was hesitant to offer a deal because she had published short story versions previously in sci-fi magazines.  From there, she talked about her process, writing for a living universe, and how stories come together for her; listening to her characters, etc.

Previously, I'd been writing in Dream Weavers and had hit a pretty serious block - I didn't know my main character.  I couldn't decide on a name for him because I didn't know what kind of person he was.  Rather, he was presenting himself in a way that was completely at odds with my idea of him.  Young guys don't really act or talk in a film-noir sort of way.  There's a reason it's Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis in Sin City and not, say, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher.  Other aspects aside, you can't take them seriously acting in that sort of role because they simply look too young.

I already knew that for my two story concepts... well, that's the thing.  They are concepts.  I don't have some kind of timeline or flow chart or whatever else annotated before hand.  That worried me somewhat, because I had vague ideas of the story I wanted to tell, but no real clue of the players (and thus, their actions and motivations) in those stories.  Normally, I'd get hung up over that, blow it up into an insurmountable problem, and then just sit and sulk and never follow through on it (no really, I have practice).  Among the many things in life I'm trying to come to terms with, trying in spite of perceived obstacles is something I'm trying to become more comfortable with.

So I had stopped (could you tell?) for a while with vague plans to flesh out characters and motivations, and then just sort of smash everything together and see what happened.  Of course, that's not always so simple.  You come into a George RR Martin-esque sort of problem where you aren't necessarily sure how many characters you really need, and it all sort of spirals out of control (it is known).  And you know what? Coming up with names is REALLY GOD DAMN HARD.  I mean, it's hard enough when you have to pick an account name or forum name, or when you have to name your character online AND ALL THE GOOD ONES ARE TAKEN SO SCREW IT or you are playing an RPG and they are like, "hay, naming is hard, so name these four characters and all the other random guys you pick up along the way."

Except for me, it was getting to be like, Name this planet.  And it's solar system.  And it's dominant race.  And make a consistent naming convention for it's people.  And then name the galactic alliance they lead (the Ascendant Milieu and the Nihil (Cooperative), I'm really happy with those two, SO DON'T STEAL OR JUDGE).  Ok, Now do that again for like, the other 8 or 10 alien races you invented.  And then the human characters.  And the PDAI/AIDE (Personal Digital Artificial Intelligence / Autonomous Intelligent Digital Entity) assigned to each one.  And that was just for Digital Entities.

But I think you can see what I mean when I said sometimes problems run away from and grow into giant monsters that I can't seem to deal with.

With Dreamweavers, it's sort of an Alt-Earth scenario, so on the one hand, you have it easy because human names come pre-invented.  They have books of them, I'm told.  Indeed, everyone you know has one; sometimes more than one.  On the other hand, you can't sort of just rub your cat against the keyboard and call the result "Elvish" or whatever.  And picking names can be just as hard - especially last names, because I'm always encountering new ones on facebook, etc.  Like, wow that's a surname? And you don't want to call everyone "Smith."  And you want to pick the right name that sounds right, without being cheesy-obvious.  Like, John Stryker; he's a boxer.  No shit, really?

Anyway, Rusch was talking about how she'd write bits and pieces as they came to her... and they wouldn't necessarily be from/for the same story either.  It was an approach I hadn't fully considered, but which resonated with me.  But I do still need to define/describe my mains, give them names.  Then they can tell me what happens during the parts I don't know.

....I wrote all that, But basically all the important stuff was that one paragraph at the end.  Oh well.

As for the process... I'm always a little weird and particular about writing things.  Even when it came to term papers for law school (and yes, I did actually plan, research, and write a 20 page paper the night before it was due because I'm a moron, and shut up, it was excellent, it got an A-).  For me, I really like the kinesthetics of writing; I like to write by hand, on paper (preferably lined, yellow, legal pads) beforehand.  Usually I will use indentation-note taking style to outline what I want to say, fully writing in the parts I know with certainty.  This has been a habit for a long time; when I was in Japan and did a travelogue blog entry per day, I always wrote it out beforehand on paper, and then copied it onto digital format.  I did that for something like two months, each day, everyday (or equivalent thereof; sometimes It was a day or two before I got the post written and published, but there was an entry for each day is the point).

Right now I've got a little journal with all kinds of notes in it; it's a bit jumbled, because it has two stories worth of notes interspersed amongst each other, and also it's a little waterlogged from rain/Taiwan air.  I may have to transfer into two books, which is as good an excuse as any for my little-book-collecting habit.

Bullet Time

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  It possessed these traits.  Its existence was simple, short, but well defined with purpose.  There were no questions as to its abilities, no room for doubt in its ephemeral life, no equivocation in its assigned task.  The entirety of its life was embodied in one question: would it hit its target?  If it did, that was success.  It would explode shortly thereafter, delivering its payload to the designated target.  Whether this resulted in the destruction of the target, whether that hit saved another’s life, whether its actions brought about an end to the conflict sooner rather than later, these questions were beyond the scope of its life, and as such they were irrelevant.

Clarity.  Certainty. Conviction.  A hit was success, the ultimate fulfillment of its being, the ultimate meaning granted to its existence.

A miss, by contrast, was unforgivable.  A miss was failure.  A miss could not be undone.  It would lie somewhere, buried and useless; its entire existence objectively deemed a waste, from construction to execution.  There was no purpose in a fired bullet that missed its mark.  It would lay there, completely without use, capable only of analyzing and reanalyzing its abject failure.  The barest hope of being recovered and recycled was no comfort at all; better it should never have been made in the first place.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  Total and irredeemable.

It had no name – it had no need for one.  It blurred the line between simple projectile munitions and self-aware intelligence.  Yet there was no question to who or what it was.

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  A hit was success.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

An ellipsoid cone with a pair of wing-like extrusions in the front, the micro-missile was essentially a futuristic arrowhead.  Its form was principally that of a wedge, an incline plane, one of the simplest machines any civilization discovers, consciously or otherwise.  Of course, most wedges weren’t self aware.

The micro missile considered the known information it had available – its default shape, mass, base coefficient of drag, aerodynamic flow and efficiency, and launch velocity.  It requested additional telemetry and information from its weapon systems control module.

Its world suddenly came to life in a flood of visual and mathematical data, its request being processed directly by the craft’s sensor suite.  It could see now that it was loaded in the recessed, dorsal mounted rail gun of a Sparrow hawk scout fighter.  The craft’s sleek, four-winged design was reminiscent of the micro-missile’s own form factor.  Numbers and vector lines appended visual elements, indicating that the Sparrow hawk was undergoing evasive maneuvers, dodging projectile fire from a hostile enemy craft.  The enemy craft was designated as its target; IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) transponders indicated no other secondary targets of opportunity to consider or allied craft to avoid.  Additional information began to clamor for attention; it devoured it all, adjusting its basic trajectory formula for temperature, pressure, gravity, atmospheric viscosity (wind resistance), turbulence, and the air flow gradient  within the engagement area.

It took into account the target’s movements over the pass 30 seconds to create a movement profile of the target and plotted primary and secondary trajectories, marking various points of committal where it would need to choose one path or another on the basis of the target’s motion.  Historical data on the target’s evasive capabilities and tendencies was unavailable – it would be the first round fired by the Sparrow hawk.  A miss was failure. Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

As the Sparrow hawk came out of its evasive roll, the micro-missile felt the magnetic fields of the rail gun increase around it; the nearly inaudible purr of capacitors building charge and the subsequent burst of electromagnetic energy was like a blood thirsty war cry to the micro-missile.

Clarity.  Certainty.  Conviction.  A hit was success.  A miss was failure.  Failure was absolute.  It would not miss.

The complex field of data the micro-missile lived in began to change dramatically, but in accordance with all of its calculations and projections.  No corrections were required.  Target telemetry showed that the target had not yet reacted, indeed did not seem to be even moving at all.  The micro-missile committed to its primary trajectory; it began the extremely delicate operation of shifting its mass, altering the angle and thickness of its wings by mere molecules to impart a slight spin and lift.  It would make a slight dip, then spiral upwards at a 70⁰ angle off horizontal, directly into the underside of the enemy craft.  Tertiary and quaternary points of no return came and went.  The target had barely moved at all.

The micro-missile stuck: success.  And then things took a bizarre turn.

The design specifications for the micro-missile intended for the projectile to make contact with enemy armor and, as impact progressed, to explode.  The explosion would ideally cause the denser wings of the micro-missile to score the impact area with deep ridges, if not outright tear into the material itself and leave a wider tear in the armor.  This served two purposes.  First, it was intended to maximize damage to armor material and inhibit projection of Material State Energy fields by directly tearing apart the grapheme-conductor super weave (or equivalent) surface layer of the armor.  Without conductive pathways to project the energy in Material State shielding, the afflicted area became more vulnerable to subsequent attack.  Second, it increased the surface area of the weakened area.  Although the secondary effect seemed physically de minimis, it was in fact the more important of the two.  The explosive charge carried by the micro-missile was not intended to damage the target – it was too small.  Besides firing the wings as secondary projectiles, it would also  release and spread the payload: deconstructor nanites.  Increased surface area and weakened bonds increased the number of nanites that could simultaneously attack and the speed with which they could work towards breaching the armor, as well as self-replicate.  Unchecked they could dissolve a target, although in practice it took far too much time.  Weakening structural integrity at multiple points was the more practical approach.

At least that was the idea.  In this particular instance, it quickly became apparent that the micro-missile’s material composition was far stronger than the F-35 Lightning’s armor.  It impacted the underside of the fighter jet and pierced straight through without any appreciable slow down.  As the appropriate interval following impact passed without detonation, the micro-missile realized something was wrong.  A quick query to the Sparrow hawk’s sensors indicated a complete penetration; the micro-missile immediately detonated itself, just before impacting the far side of the chassis.