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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/KyleKKent on 2024-05-20 21:22:54+00:00.
~First~
(Sorry it’s late, there was some drama with my friends and I had a friend visiting/taking refuge at my apartment for a bit.)
Capes and Conundrums
“Oh! It came through! I was told that the waiting list was a lot longer.” Santiago notes as he reclines. “You caught nearly everyone running for a bathroom break.”
“My feed is inundated with salacious offers from numerous alien women. I had no idea that there were so many possible skin colours or so many ways to proposition someone in.” Observer Wu notes in a mildly dazed tone.
“At least five to six direct ways per language, you get poetic or lyrical and the amount never stops increasing.” Santiago states.
“I see, before the others return, of which I have no doubt there are others, what is your position there Bernal?” Observer Wu asks and Santiago’s lip quirks a bit in amusement.
“Sir, my Official Rank is Operative. What we’re doing here can be summarized as a combination of Recruitment, Advertisement, Cultural Enrichment and Public Training. This is technically a vacation world where people from all over the galaxy come over to hunt gigantic serpent monsters that are in effect natural disasters with a guiding will. What’s interesting however is that...”
Santiago is cut off as Scout re-enters the room. “Ah, sir, allow me to introduce Operative Maripoll, first name Scout. A Slohb of with a very wide breadth of skills, talents and previous occupations.”
“Sir!” Scout says snapping off a salute before moving her entire form into her seat and dragging her core behind her in a single movement.
“Good to meet you madam. It is madam is it not? I am not overly familiar with your species.”
“Slohbs are not technically anything. But we develop our personalities based on those around us in our formative years. So the vast majority of us end up female identifying. We reproduce via budding so I have no organs of the sort either way.” Scout says. “Madam will do. I’m pretty typical.”
“I see, now you mentioned training, public training to be specific. What’s going on with that? I understand that training isn’t generally a secret, but holding it in public is rather... odd.”
“Well, I was getting to that, you need to understand that the majority of the local population are Sonir. A bat descendent species that were uplifted pretty much immediately after they evolved to full sentience.”
“Really?”
“Yes, they went from basically Early Hominids to a Galactic Scale people with nothing in between. No language, no culture. No history. Animals to space age. Imagine it.” Santiago says and Observer Wu grows silent as he considers the ramifications.
“It seems that Cruel Space, The Void, The Emptiness or whatever it is that we want to call it, that it was a blessing. Time and room enough to become a people of our own. To grow.”
“Yes. Believe it or not it was actually an act of benevolence on the part of the galaxy.”
“For the Sonir?”
“Yes, there is a robust culture of hunting in the galaxy. But there is a rule, a law. If the species you hunt becomes fully sentient, becomes more than just a cunning animal, then you’re responsible for helping it evolve. The title Grand Matriarch, or in the case of one of our own, Grand Patriarch, is for such a person. Someone who has helped a species evolve. I’ve met the Grand Matriarch of The Sonir, she helped set up one of our own into becoming a Grand Patriarch.”
“I see. So your public training involves...” Observer Wu begins as Robin returns swears under his breath and rushes to his seat. He then holds up a finger and points to the door.
It opens again and Admiral Hynala walks in and then pauses before gesturing for whoever’s in the hallway behind him to hurry up. Sweetsong, Yi-Chun and several others rush in behind him.
“Apologies, the wait was not only long, but shortly after dinner time in this portion of Skathac.” Admiral Hynala states.
“Understandable. Operative Bernal was just about to inform me about what Public Training means.”
“This is a tourist destination, one obsessed with the comic book side of Earth Culture. In particular Batman. We help set up challenges of increasing difficulty to solve. This not only gets us paid by the city for bringing in further tourists, but prevents the locals from hurting themselves and allows us to effectively train numerous people before they sign up, while advertising why they should.” Admiral Hynala explains.
“... I beg your pardon?”
“Numerous locals are impersonating DC Characters from the Batman Line. We’re keeping a lid on the chaos and making something useful out of it. As such many of my soldiers are involved in public performances that test the skills of the locals in a safe manner. Operative Bernal here often plays the part of larger and stronger characters, Bane is his most common character. Operative White often plays the part of characters such as Deathstroke.”
“Deadshot here, if you’re unfamiliar with the setting Bane is a very powerfule melee combatant, Deathstroke a very skilled one and Deadshot a sniper.”
“I do Clayface. Which is a mud monster.”
“... American comics...” Observer Wu says in disdain. “Is the entire population enamoured with this?”
“More than just the local population sir. Tourism has increased, the city is expanding and further outposts have been requested by other settlements on planet. They really like this.” Admiral Hynala explains before smirking. “We’ve compromised in that we’ve trained several locals into not only being Undaunted themselves, but performers in this way.”
“I see... Now there is something I need to ask of you Admiral Hynala, formerly Brigadier Hynala. If Earth calls for you, will you answer?”
“Yes, so long as the call is not one of madness.”
“And what is a call of madness?” Observer Wu presses.
“I have received no less than five direct orders from India alone. Two of them conflict with the other three. I have also received orders from China, Russia, The United States. England, Germany and every other country I can actively remember and many of which I require a primer to recall. That is but one form of madness.”
“And the other forms?” Observer Wu asks.
“The knowing slaughter of innocents, the betrayal of loyal and law abiding people. Senseless destruction. I’m certain you can put it together. The galaxy is vast, strange and full of many different types of people. We must be careful where we direct our wrath, and to do it recklessly is madness.” Admiral Hynala says and Observer Wu rubs his chin as he considers.
“Five orders from your home country alone, contradicting by themselves. And more to consider...”
“Those with significant rank when we set out got the most orders. But none of us left without at least several contradictions.”
“I understand. When the fact that every nation attempted to subvert The Dauntless and it’s crew to their own end there was an enormous public outcry. Many governments have their authority dangling by a thread. Hence why I was vetted, tested and then sent out to ascertain for certain what is happening. Earth cannot afford to have any ambiguity anymore.” Observer Wu states. “India among them. People are furious to put things lightly. Much on this ship is an appeasement.”
“I see. Now for a change of topic, but something certainly tied into this situation, would you care to guess how much of human culture and intellectual property has been taken?”
“Taken?”
“Taken. And the correct answer is all of it. Like your Inevitable, The Dauntless was hacked in it’s totality. Everything we had stored in digital format was taken more or less instantly. Hence why you’re liable to run into a great deal of things that are seemingly from Earth at random.”
“Could nothing be done?”
“The sheer number of hackers rendered any kind of reprisal utterly impractical. The number exceeded that of the human species. Needless to say...”
“Yes, prosecution is not possible in that case. Was an answer found?”
“Yes, basically everything human is licensed out for a pittance. It adds up and the low price ensures that no one can excuse themselves not buying it. Legally slamming down on the few people that made a spectacle of not paying afterwards sealed things for us. An enormous amount of all the money we use is from the license.”
“I see, and thank you for informing me about where so much of the budget is from. So... you... play with the locals?”
“We have four, theoretically five, levels of competition. The first two levels are the sort of things you can expect from a relatively healthy and intelligent individual capable of following instructions. The majority of all interactions are at those levels. If you’ve seen an escape room, corn maze or watched an episode of any kind of detective show, and you have the general idea of what’s expected.”
“And the other two levels? And why is one theoretical?” Observer Wu asks.
“Honestly... imagine level three as something you’d have a soldier perhaps two weeks into training do. It pushes their mental abilities and they’re expected to perform some non-lethal combat. Locate a target, understand which of several is the actual target and then ‘take them down’. Level four introduces numerous complications such as a time limit, shifting goals, inaccurate or falsified information and any amount of ‘combat’ is at a much higher level.”
“And the Theoretical level?”
“Only for fully trained individuals and ONLY after a great deal of pape...
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