Vector ⋯ 0

Welcome to Starion – Your ticket to the stars.

Beginning in 2071, Starion began with initial flight tests of jet powered action figures, intended to disrupt an unforgiving market owned by a large toy monopoly as a response to the hike in sales cost for recreational toys for children. 

What exists now three hundred years later is a universal power responsible for the welfare of seventy-two human colonies across nine star systems far from the Milky Way.

What began as two brothers wishing to make their childish daydreams of robots and space travel real was bought and disfigured by Earth’s most powerful companies, eager to adapt the technology into tools for gaining power and fulfilling their bottomless greed.

Torn apart by the internal power struggle to possess the technology, the corporations began to feud, tying in the world powers and countries that they financially supported and engaging in the fifth World War.

What resulted was the decimation of the human population, invoking increased dependence on automated servant workers to maintain the positions in service and labour that they could no longer fill. 

Extinction faced those living on Earth’s surface as wastelands expanded and resources grew slim. The land soured and what little produce remained was incapable of feeding the last of the starving human population. 

Sensing humanity’s end, Starion–having survived the corporate war–proposed a plan to the last of the world powers to utilise black matter research, bridging its compatibility with the stabilised clean jet power they created. It was through these successful tests that new aerial transportation was achieved, capable of lifting humanity to the stars and beginning anew.

This result enthralled the remaining human population, adding to the power Starion had begun to gather, propelling it to the central government organisation we recognize today.

With finances and power, Starion began to send guided space flights to the stars, scouring nearby planets for materials and resources to aid their dying population. But as decades passed, the promise of extinction grew more and more until it became reality.

In 2180, with grim results and no viable planets to colonise, the first branch of Starion sprouted from the experimentation of genetic alterations in an attempt to force adaptation to changing climate disasters and widen the scope of the conditions necessary for human life. 

Its goal was not achieved, but resulted in a new genetically modified species of human with lengthened lifespan and hyper intelligence, sterile and branded as ‘Metahumans’ whose adaptability made long space travel ideal.

This was the birth of the ‘MSC’ Metahuman Space Command home to the Nomad Program, in which these metahumans were birthed and trained to become the upper echelon of scientists, engineers, and medical officers the universe had ever known. 

The first class of Nomads began star trekking on longer flight paths into space to find new systems and new planets, further developing the technological advancement of the human race to help their ascension to the universe.

With this high-risk operation venturing further than once thought possible, Starion thought it essential to begin enhancing the robotic workforce and making them weapons capable under its new security branch Merrimech, birthing Starion’s trifecta of human operating power, fueled by surging technology and genetic redesign.

These security mechs were powered by dark matter and engaged with a limited Virtual Intelligence  to encourage its obedience and prevent the machinery they depended on from turning to them. 

With time these measures proved useful, but soon whispers began to fuel the rising concern of Mechanic Independence. 

Starion continued to insist that like the VI’s embedded on their star ships, the VI were incapable of unshackling, but frequent hacking and sabotage began loosening the Merrimech programs screws.

Starion began its rehabilitation of the Merrimech program as a way to rebrand the image of ‘the rogue AI’ by creating a true artificial intelligence bound by the corporation’s constraints to prove that it would never surpass its limits as soulless machines owned by organics. 

Units of these updated security mechs were dispatched to areas with high crime concentrations, leading to numbers dropping globally for murder and other felonious crimes. 

By the turn of the twenty-third century the image for these mechs grew more humanoid to encourage continued trusted alliances, finalising their integration into human society as the finest line of defence humanity had to offer.

The Merrimech program had finally exceeded its goals, but as black matter material grew scarce, Merrimechs were withdrawn from the common streets and dispatched only in dire need from the production facility routed amongst the Mars and Lunar One Colonies, populated with the wealthiest of humans as temporary homes until ‘New Earth’ was found. This put pressure on the Nomad program to make do with several systems within reach deemed livable but not ideal. 

In the year 2230, Nomads were dispatched to these planets and tasked with terraforming projects to begin mining and industrial colonies to fuel the rapidly declining black matter resources. 

Faced with overpopulation in the last of the livable lands on Earth, the remaining wealthless humans were offered indentured servitude in exchange for finally being freed from the constraints of their polluted homes and carried to their new lives in far systems where Nomads awaited their arrival. 

What became of the Earth they left behind was deemed unknown at the turn of the twenty sixth century as all of its land returned to the sea.

The Fate of the Nomads

Humanity was received by the nomads in three separate star systems, giving them time and resources to begin repopulation and expand to the seventy-two systems that they inhabit today. 

Now on Generation Six of the Nomad Program, there remains only three space faring vessels specially crafted to raise future Nomads, including the Ark Dawn Ridge led by Generation Three Nomad Admiral Antonio Arkham.

Reaching his high status quickly in his two hundred and fifty years, Antonio Arkham had begun at birth on the Dawn Ridge and dispatched at the age of eighty-three to the Tress Keela Galaxy, the last to join Starion’s expansion efforts. It was there on the planet Thenos that he began his terraforming efforts, the twenty-second planet in a belt of fifty surrounding a young orange sun. 

A desert planet, Thenos posed little to no wildlife concerns and fractured soil home to a wealth of dark matter deposits in a complex cave system underneath the planet’s surface. Here Arkham began ‘Arkham Rift’, the most profitable mining colony in Starion’s history to date.

Gained on the backs of their labourers, this record profit raised concerns across the Starion Systems in which the corporation was facing scrutiny for lengthening the indentured servitude contracts without the signer's consent. This led to rogue settlers rioting and displaced as they turned on their Starion benefactors and became localised raider forces.

These bands of pirates began in the smaller unsettled systems in which crafts and resources could be stolen from the expanding corporation as retaliation for its enslavement and practices that servants claimed violated their human rights.

Caught between their self-inflicted uprising and protecting its remaining consumers, Starion deemed itself not liable for the conditions in settlements being attacked by the servants’ own hand and declared these Raiders in breach of their Starion contracts and stripped of their access to Nomad operated settlements where food and shelter resided.

It was when this infighting reached Thenos that Nomad Commander Antonio Arkham was promoted to Admiral Arkham of the MSC, and given his own faction of the Nomad program on the Nomad Vessel Ark Dawn Ridge where Astra was born. 

Guided by her mentor, Nomad Commander Astra excelled in engineering and agriculture, top of her class in the close quarters of the Dawn’s Ridge and granted the rank of commander just before her graduation at the young age of fifty. 

Dispatched to oversee her mentor’s namesake, Commander Astra dedicated thirty years of service on Thenos maintaining the colony of Arkham Rift and beginning a second colony with blossoming agriculture from the use of her groundbreaking terraforming technology.

This developed tech gave proven and lasting results, leading to faster colony creation on fewer resources and limited space. 

With her promotion as a reward, Astra was given advanced permissions amongst the Nomad Clans and high honours for maintaining the record breaking colony, lengthening Admiral Arkham’s legacy.

Now she can be found on Thenos inhabiting outpost 45 where she continues to review and create prototype mechanisms deemed as beneficial to both the Metahuman Space Command and its parent corporation, Starion.

Vector ⋯ 1

A Call – Server Room – Outpost 45

Astra continued to rewire the data net circuitry as the machinery surrounding her hummed, the warmth of the crowded dark room comforting her as she worked well into the forty-eight hour Thenos night. 

Gentle sparks hit her goggled frames above her Nomadic implant across her brown nose, a thin white line tattooed to each cheekbone edge on her bespeckled face.

“Click?” Astra said aloud, the implant chiming with a low note to signal that she was connected to the outpost virtual intelligence assistant.

“How can I help you, Commander?” the feminine voice responded with indifferent interest.

Astra dipped the mechanical pin in the last drops of liquid iron, picking up another bulge of dew and placing it on top of the exposed frayed copper ends. “Double check the shipping manifest that Admiral Arkham sent last lunar week. When is iron arriving?”

“One moment please.”

Astra waited patiently as she continued to work, sliding the blue light board forward with a minimal flex of her fingers, holographic blueprints displaying in front of her as she looked up.

As Click returned, Astra continued soldering. “The iron shipment was scheduled to arrive at the end of this night cycle, but has been marked as delayed. Would you like me to contact Admiral Arkham for a renewed arrival estimate?”

Astra released a frustrated sigh. Though it was day on Lunar One, if she called him during night on Thenos, he would simply chastise her for not resting. “No, thank you Click. I’ll call him when the day cycle begins again. That’s all for now.” 

One Thenos day/night cycle was equal to five Earth Lunar Colony days. For seventy-two hours the sun shone bright on the desert, and forty-eight hours the moon bathed the red planetary sand with cool bands of light.  

Astra had not slept in two Thenonian days. A fact her much admired employer would not be thrilled to hear on her next psychiatric evaluation.

Click rejoined her comm line. “I apologise Commander, it seems Starion notified Admiral Arkham of my inquiry. I have him on the line now.”

Astra let out a stiff groan, cursing corporate overreach. “Can you tell him I’m busy please, Click?” it would not dissuade him, but it would buy her time.

“Right away.”

She worked at a greater pace, hoping to fix the next link before their inevitable discussion as her line chimed again. 

“I’m sorry Commander, Admiral Arkham invoked his administrator privileges to be put through. Would you like him right away?”

Astra smiled as she turned off her hand tool. “Are you suggesting we put the most decorated Admiral in the MSC on hold, Click? I’m liking the rebel you’ve been since your last update.”

Click responded smugly. “Noted, Commander. Patching him through.”

Astra readied herself for a lecture as a familiar voice came through, smooth and accented with superiority. 

“Good morning, Astra. Concern for your next shipment keeping you up at night?”

Astra kept her frustration silent, thankful that he could not see her eyes roll into the back of her skull. “No, Admiral. Just light curiosity. This is the third shipment that’s been pushed back this month.”

A thin chuckle came through, Antonio’s natural charm clear as he smoothed over the problem at hand. “You can thank your friends in the eastern gorge. Greater risk of a Raider attack means delayed shipments.”

“A problem we could fix if we revisit rebuilding New Dawn. If we offer them safe haven I’m sure–”

Antonio cut her off, not liking where her mind was turning. “They’re a headache for us both, Commander. Negotiating with them is not in your best interest–or Starion’s. As I recall telling you when we discussed this last week.” he paused, allowing his words to sink in as he encouraged her to drop it once more. “Think of the message that would be sent to the settlers in Arkham Rift. Should they be subjected to making nice with the pirates that have killed their family–their friends?”

Astra stayed silent for a moment, releasing the argument from her tongue. As always, Starion’s decision would be final. Which meant that rebuilding the colony she had terraformed and begun herself was no longer an option. 

Yet still for hope alone, she would not let it go. 

Not yet. 

“Understood, Admiral. It was only a suggestion.”

Antonio’s heavy sigh rang in her ears as she toyed with the board in her hands. Her colony design–in all of its perfection–would never come to fruition again. Not unless she could get the Admiral on her side.

“Have you been taking the sleeping pills I prescribed to you?”

Astra glanced at the bottle stuffed haphazardly next to a crate on the crowded wire shelf. “Not…religiously.” 

She hated the effect they had on her. It seemed that she slept too heavily–as if days later her body was still sleeping. “I’m just so close to finishing the data net. I know if I keep working it could be done sooner than anticipated.” 

“While I appreciate your dedication, finishing the data net won’t bring New Dawn back to the table, Astra. I hope you can make peace with that. You deserve rest. Arkham Rift is thriving and you even have that project from Merrimech to work on. Why don’t you give it a try–take your mind off things?”

Astra looked behind herself to the quiet corner of the server room, moonlight falling through the skylight onto the metal pod labelled and shut tight, its buzzing vibrating the floor with its internal power system. 

Another project was the last thing she needed right now. 

Especially one for Merrimech.

“Colonies fail sometimes, Astra. If you need something else to do, review the model they sent you. Take some notes, make some changes until you’re happy with it. Just keep everything in line with Starion policy. Then maybe–maybe we can talk about implementing some of your tech at Arkham Rift.”

“I hear you.” she said in defeat as she glanced at the closed pod again. “Make Merrimech happy and then maybe I’ll get what I want.”

“What we want.” Antonio corrected her. “I want you to succeed too, Astra. You're less alone than you feel. Get some sleep and start fresh with the prototype tomorrow.”

“Admiral.” she said in goodbye as she spun in the chair, facing the pod. 

A month after its arrival, it had sat untouched collecting dust in the server room where it could loom over her, taunting her with its presence. 

After the loss of her colony to Raiders, it seemed that Starion had given her the assignment for Merrimech as a consolation prize, reminding her that though she had failed at her own purpose as a Nomad, she still had value in the corporation’s eyes.

The task itself was even more troublesome. 

Their latest attempt at the perfect shackled AI: a servant, companion, and security mech in one–was a clear straddling of the ethical line Starion drew to protect its consumers.

Astra rose, walking closer as she examined the tags from the Mars production facility. It had travelled far across the galaxy to sit and collect dust.

“Click?”

“Commander?”

“What’s the chance I turn this thing on and it wants to immediately annihilate every human alive?”

Click took a moment, before responding. “Ten thousand to one.”

Astra touched the blue powerlock before she could decide to stop. 

“Fingers crossed.”

 

To be continued...