The Starfighter Invitation

26 mars

Before making any other decisions, I turned off my Snug’s gravity to see what would happen, and found myself delightfully light. Mars' gravity was around a third of Earth’s, and made me feel superhuman.

It was only after some quality bouncing that I settled down to choose my Renba: the Art Deco bird, which was sparrow sized, falcon-like in shape, and flitted in a distinctly artificial manner that suggested anti-gravity. Or perhaps just low gravity. It was hard not to picture a little chunk of brain—would it be brain?—hidden inside the silver and black casing. It was harder still not to leap up in delight to touch the ceiling at every reminder that This Was Mars.

Since Dio hadn’t pushed me to choose a Challenge before setting out, I decided this was free-exploration-without-guiding-arrows time, and triggered my airlock, only to have to pause and read through the city rules. This was a duel-enabled zone, but not open PvP. The courtesy standards were…it looked like there was a higher standard of politeness and public decorum on Mars than on Earth.

"Is there a way to read location rules before you’ve landed on a planet?"

[[Rank Eight.]]

"Pfui." I accepted the rules, and opened the airlock, not in the least surprised to see that I’d entered a long white tube that reminded me strongly of Vessa’s rollercoaster. There were hardly any people about, but otherwise the whole design was very reminiscent of Vessa. I wondered if The Synergis was going to end up like too many space exploration games, where the same handful of planet designs were replicated over and over again, with only randomly generated names to show you the difference.

I took a lift pad up to the transport pods, and fooled with my menus until I figured out a way to go somewhere without starting a Challenge. Lethe West sounded promising, and in very short order I forgot any similarities because the pod shot out into the immense rift that was Valles Marineris, and everything was white arches and lavender sky.

The lavender, Dio explained, was an effect of the Earth-equivalent atmosphere inside the habitat, and the dust in the air above the roof. The arches really were aqueducts—and housing, and gardens, and anything else that could be usefully placed in kilometres-tall support structures.

"What happens if there’s an earth-, a Marsquake, Dio?" I asked, as my pod deposited me inside yet another tube, and I began to work out how to get out into the valley.

[[Mars is quite stable. But there’s a certain amount of flexibility built into the habitat to cope with natural expansion and contraction, along with minor disturbances. If there is an emergency, your Snug is always the best shelter option, however. If it’s at a distance, try for one of the transport system pods. They can function independently, though they’re quite slow outside their tubing.]]

I considered my floating alien overlord. "Is there going to be an emergency like there was a storm?"

Dio laughed. [[There’s enough in the lan Challenges here to push you without any further complication. You have a Renba with you for good reason.]]

I’d actually forgotten my silent Art Deco bird, which seemed to deliberately hover out of my line of sight until I put effort into looking for it.

"So eager to kill me, Dio?"

[[I’d prefer it if you surprised me.]]

That was as lightly said as anything else Dio produced, but I considered the statement gravely. Dio was not Dio—whether te was a Cycog or not, te was definitely not a fledgling assigned to a single Bio. Who or whatever te was, te would not have the same investment in my success as a fledgling. But, from what I’d seen so far, Dio did want Dream Speed’s players to do well at the game.

I, with the memory of a knife in my back, would prefer that I surprised Dio as well.

"What happens if I’m hurt instead of killed?"

[[Soup.]]

"We can rebuild you, huh? Okay, I’ll—."

I’d finally emerged out into the valley proper, and had the natural reaction to standing in a riverside meadow at the foot of kilometres-high arches, beneath a lavender sky. I stopped dead.

Someone collided with my shoulder, stumbled, and then brushed past, muttering in a language I didn’t think I’d heard before. A helpful internal translation followed.

"Idiot Enclavers."

In the low gravity, what would otherwise have been a minor bump had nearly knocked me off my feet, so I moved to the side of the path before doing anything else.

"I’m guessing Enclavers are the equivalent of country hicks?" I asked Dio silently.

[[To many.]]

"To you?"

[[Depends on the Enclaver. And the Enclave. Your supposed origin is one of those that attempt to emulate Earth before Type Three dispersal and the rise of The Synergis, and they, ah, are felt to sit toward the hick-ish end of things.]]

My attention had shifted from the arches, allowing me to notice people wandering along the river’s edge. I looked around, spotted some usefully isolated rocks, and crossed to sit on one.

[[Too crowded? This number seemed well within your tolerance before.]]

I was never not going to wish I could have the game without this probing, but hopefully concealed my mild annoyance. "If I was in the middle of that big cluster over there it would make me feel uncomfortable, but really I wanted to gape at the aliens without being hick-ish. A lot of them aren’t human—aren’t Type Threes, are they?"

[[That surprises you?]]

"I think I was expecting a majority of players still," I said aloud, deciding I was far enough away from people to not be overheard. "Can you tell me about the different types, and, uh, any tips for not being a crass Enclaver in company of NPCs?"

Dio drifted down to sit on my left knee, which reminded me of my Renba. It had landed on a rock just behind me, and frankly was starting to give me the creeps.

"I should have picked a vulture," I muttered, and Dio laughed.

[[Think of it as an ambulance.]]

"I don’t see a lot of people with one following them about."

[[That’s one of the things considered crass. This is a safe area, and unless you’re about to duel, or take on a Challenge, why would you need an ambulance dogging your steps? It would be an insult to your host—or at least the city administrator. Many set their Renba to rescue distance, which means there’ll be a cluster lurking in the nearest service corridors, but you’ll see occasional Bios that never take two steps without one in attendance.]]

I digested that, wondering if it was a kind of machismo thing, along with the whole insult your host issue. Then I shrugged. Maybe Renba creeped everyone else out as well.

"Run me through the species here, Dio. Is there a Type One?"

[[Yes. See the half-dozen running through that spiral statue almost directly opposite you?]]

I didn’t, unless Dio was talking about the terrier-sized, scaly things, ranging in colour from beige to black.

"Pangolins?"

[[There’s some external similarities, certainly. Type Ones thrive in a somewhat lower-oxygen mix, so in this environment tend toward the frenetic, if they’re not adapted. Darashi, origin planet Anala.]]

"And Type Twos?"

[[Vssf of Haal. There’s unlikely—no, there is one here. Down by the water, in the atmosphere suit. Most of the Bios in Helannan are oxygen breathers, although their preferred ratio varies drastically. We’ve only encountered a handful of methane-breathing species, and only one that is sapient. Type Twos are naturally long-lived, and become immobilised when they enter second stage maturity, if they do not change bodies.]]

I considered the odd shape near the wide river. A tall central lump, and a bunch of shorter outer lumps, like a teacher in a circle of children. Any details were covered by a striped red and blue suit that I hadn’t initially recognised as clothing. "What do they look like without the suits?"

[[Molybdenite carousels.]]

I tried to remember what molybdenite looked like, but only knew that it was a type of rock. The shape resembled a carousel only in the vaguest terms.

"If Bios can just throw on an adapted modal, why atmosphere suits?"

[[Many Bios hate wearing modals too different from their Core. The ability—or inability—to speak effectively seems to be a particular issue, along with the extra effort managing different limb sets. Or it is simply a matter of feeling wrong, so after trying other species out for a little while, they revert to the familiar.]]

"I can see that. I liked being a cat, but not having hands isn’t something I’d enjoy long-term."

[[Type Four is another biped. Effen is a low-gravity world like this one, and the Ah Ma Ani like to mix with other species, so there’s quite a few here. The tall ones.]]

Tall was an understatement. Ten feet, at the least, and their proportions very odd to my eye. Their heads were like little nubs on the ends of stalk-like necks, and their arms were longer than their spindly legs. They were covered all over in downy hair in cream and pastel shades, with long fringes on their upper arms making it look like they were wearing capes.

[[Type Five, Shree of Kshesh, are water adapted, and the most insular of the races. If there are any here, they’ll be wearing a different-species modal. They resemble your octopi. Type Six, the Kzah, are bipedal reptiles—they would remind you of geckos—but they don’t like low gravity, and I can’t see any here. Type Seven are quadrupeds, the Embyde. Embydarian is a heavy gravity world, and while they like low gravity worlds very much, they’ll be wearing adapted modals if they’re here.]]

"Is the dragonish sort of…person over by the pink flowers Embyde?"

[[That’s a Type Six-One. Kzah-Darashi, though with a size adaptation.]]

"Wait, have you played science project trying to genemod strong lan Bios or something?"

[[Most of that pre-dates The Synergis. Bios do all manner of extraordinary things to each other, and there are dozens of different variants. Do you want to go through them all?]]

"Uh, no, just the, um, non-variant species."

[[The Embyde were the last of those.]]

"There were only seven sen-sapient species in the whole galaxy? Before they mixed together?"

[[Eight if you count non-Bios. But we’ve found the remnants of many more. Some failed to adapt to their planet’s changes. Others wiped themselves out. Others…well, Bios do all manner of extraordinary things to each other.]]

"It still doesn’t seem like many, over all those billions of stars." I watched the people strolling around, trying to make myself think of them as people, even when they read as animals to me. "Are there some general rules of etiquette for mixing among other species?"

[[Never touch anyone without permission. Eye contact should be either brief or avoided. Try not to be noisy or emit fumes.]]

"Fumes?" I paused, and stopped an instinctive duck of my head toward an armpit. I hadn’t used anything resembling deodorant, but—no, even if Dio wasn’t teasing, this was a simulation, and…

Taking a breath, I decided it was about time I did something about working up a sweat. I sorted through menus, found that there seemed to be some major linked quest lines on Mars, and decided to stick with them.

"Time to not get killed."