ADDENDUM XVIII TO STARFLEET GENERAL ORDER I, CONCERNING FIRST CONTACT CANDIDATE SOCIETIES:
If a candidate society has made contact with external, independent groups in the possession of warp technology, with or without exposure to said technology, members of the United Federation of Planets and affiliated groups may NOT initiate first contact until it is determined that the candidate society has assimilated* warp technology.
*A candidate society may demonstrate assimilation of the technology by meeting the normal standards for other first contact candidate societies, specifically the autonomous development and successful use of warp technology.
Addendum 18. Proposition 37. Silas thought sourly that there ought to be a committee regulating the naming conventions for House DeMuer's crises; the repetition annoyed him, but at the moment he was susceptible to even the smallest forms of irritation. Addendum 18 meant that the United Federation of Planets - the Federation that Admiral Wolvinator hailed from, as Silas swore he had heard of other organizations claiming the same name - would not enter into any diplomatic or trade agreements with the Barony of Saint Aldwin until "first contact" had been made, and first contact could not be made until the Barony developed and used its very own warp-capable ships, as opposed to the space freighters often operated under the auspices of DeMuer Exports and the larger distributors headquartered in the Barony, whose warp engines were developed elsewhere.
Analysts working for the House under its various affiliated organizations in equally varied capacities agreed on one thing: the Admiral had bent the rules already as far as he could with the current cooperation between his Federation and DeMuer Exports in RhyDin. For the next step, they would have to play by the rules, which meant building a ship from scratch and taking it beyond the speed of light in the Drasill system.
A contract was hastily arranged by the Baronial Council and sent over to Greyshott Applied Magicks & Engineering; GAME promptly contracted the development of every part of the warp-ship to the newly created Havoc Advanced Engineering Technologies, except for the warp engine which became the overworked firm's highest-priority task.
As the engineer with the greatest understanding of applied metaphysics in the entire firm, the intellectual workload rested squarely upon Silas' shoulders. The others hastily built one model after another based on his hastily drawn and redrawn sketches, which he first reviewed swept up in the euphoria that yes, this model would work; then the flaws began to expose themselves as he visualized the complex forces working against the vessel; the strange arcane equations - entirely symbol-driven - to which he subjected the models always confirmed his suspicions, and the failures went into storage in the Barony-side cellars. He sank time and again into a morose stupor, dredged up another old textbook, and explored the next avenue.
He felt older, much older, he realized, surrounded by blueprints, sketches, arcane equations hovering like strange neon ghosts in the air, the constant hum of arcane-electric motors and the smell of ozone that always accompanied his more complex "lightning" magick. He was working hard at a task he had only flirted with in the past, but now higher powers, the same powers that gave him such latitude with research funding and travel expenses, insisted he accomplish it in as timely a manner as possible. It frustrated him to no end, and yet he could not let himself flee into the solace of other projects, not so fully. There would be no excursions into other realms seeking ancient artifacts, finding and analyzing long-dead rifts that had passed into myth, shuffling off to conferences to butt heads with the steady-state advocates and the metaphysical catastrophists. They would have satisfied his erratic lifestyle, but the project could not be postponed for weeks or months for his psyche's sake.
But then... Silas shook his head at first, and ultimately could not help himself: But then, a minor diversion, so long as it is minor, could prove therapuetic, beneficial in the long term to separate himself a little while from this task. He took another look around his chaotic mess of a study and paused to listen; no one else stirred in the building. He checked his watch, a complex brass instrument with eleven hands and three faces, and started when it told him it was ten thirty in the morning. Someone was always at the firm throughout the mornings, all week... Oh. He squinted at the dials on the watch, sighed, and recalibrated it to RhyDin-Sinaldwin Co-Alignment. Two thirty in the morning. He had maybe three more hours of peace and quiet and no one to browbeat him into doing the right project, and he would capitalize on every minute.
The young mage waved his hands slowly around the room as if weaving with long strands, or like a sailor guiding a whole ship's rigging from a single central point. The floating equations broke out of their orbits and faded from sight, lingering on the edges of reality and on their own power, instead of subtly draining his energy and focus. Wind crept in through the window and cracks in the walls with his next 'tugs,' sweeping loose and floating papers through the air and into very badly organized piles. Next, while 'grounding' himself to the primary pocket where he maintained his "floating library" by touching his staff, he drew three quick runes in the air with his fingers. The symbols made sense of his innate power and the powers he connected to; a thick book bound with what looked like a grey reptile's hide landed heavily on his desk. He selected a fresh quill and dragged his inkwell over, and went to work on "A Casual Comparison of the Erratic Behavior of Locally-Aligned and Foreign-Aligned Magick in RhyDin's West End."
If a candidate society has made contact with external, independent groups in the possession of warp technology, with or without exposure to said technology, members of the United Federation of Planets and affiliated groups may NOT initiate first contact until it is determined that the candidate society has assimilated* warp technology.
*A candidate society may demonstrate assimilation of the technology by meeting the normal standards for other first contact candidate societies, specifically the autonomous development and successful use of warp technology.
Addendum 18. Proposition 37. Silas thought sourly that there ought to be a committee regulating the naming conventions for House DeMuer's crises; the repetition annoyed him, but at the moment he was susceptible to even the smallest forms of irritation. Addendum 18 meant that the United Federation of Planets - the Federation that Admiral Wolvinator hailed from, as Silas swore he had heard of other organizations claiming the same name - would not enter into any diplomatic or trade agreements with the Barony of Saint Aldwin until "first contact" had been made, and first contact could not be made until the Barony developed and used its very own warp-capable ships, as opposed to the space freighters often operated under the auspices of DeMuer Exports and the larger distributors headquartered in the Barony, whose warp engines were developed elsewhere.
Analysts working for the House under its various affiliated organizations in equally varied capacities agreed on one thing: the Admiral had bent the rules already as far as he could with the current cooperation between his Federation and DeMuer Exports in RhyDin. For the next step, they would have to play by the rules, which meant building a ship from scratch and taking it beyond the speed of light in the Drasill system.
A contract was hastily arranged by the Baronial Council and sent over to Greyshott Applied Magicks & Engineering; GAME promptly contracted the development of every part of the warp-ship to the newly created Havoc Advanced Engineering Technologies, except for the warp engine which became the overworked firm's highest-priority task.
As the engineer with the greatest understanding of applied metaphysics in the entire firm, the intellectual workload rested squarely upon Silas' shoulders. The others hastily built one model after another based on his hastily drawn and redrawn sketches, which he first reviewed swept up in the euphoria that yes, this model would work; then the flaws began to expose themselves as he visualized the complex forces working against the vessel; the strange arcane equations - entirely symbol-driven - to which he subjected the models always confirmed his suspicions, and the failures went into storage in the Barony-side cellars. He sank time and again into a morose stupor, dredged up another old textbook, and explored the next avenue.
He felt older, much older, he realized, surrounded by blueprints, sketches, arcane equations hovering like strange neon ghosts in the air, the constant hum of arcane-electric motors and the smell of ozone that always accompanied his more complex "lightning" magick. He was working hard at a task he had only flirted with in the past, but now higher powers, the same powers that gave him such latitude with research funding and travel expenses, insisted he accomplish it in as timely a manner as possible. It frustrated him to no end, and yet he could not let himself flee into the solace of other projects, not so fully. There would be no excursions into other realms seeking ancient artifacts, finding and analyzing long-dead rifts that had passed into myth, shuffling off to conferences to butt heads with the steady-state advocates and the metaphysical catastrophists. They would have satisfied his erratic lifestyle, but the project could not be postponed for weeks or months for his psyche's sake.
But then... Silas shook his head at first, and ultimately could not help himself: But then, a minor diversion, so long as it is minor, could prove therapuetic, beneficial in the long term to separate himself a little while from this task. He took another look around his chaotic mess of a study and paused to listen; no one else stirred in the building. He checked his watch, a complex brass instrument with eleven hands and three faces, and started when it told him it was ten thirty in the morning. Someone was always at the firm throughout the mornings, all week... Oh. He squinted at the dials on the watch, sighed, and recalibrated it to RhyDin-Sinaldwin Co-Alignment. Two thirty in the morning. He had maybe three more hours of peace and quiet and no one to browbeat him into doing the right project, and he would capitalize on every minute.
The young mage waved his hands slowly around the room as if weaving with long strands, or like a sailor guiding a whole ship's rigging from a single central point. The floating equations broke out of their orbits and faded from sight, lingering on the edges of reality and on their own power, instead of subtly draining his energy and focus. Wind crept in through the window and cracks in the walls with his next 'tugs,' sweeping loose and floating papers through the air and into very badly organized piles. Next, while 'grounding' himself to the primary pocket where he maintained his "floating library" by touching his staff, he drew three quick runes in the air with his fingers. The symbols made sense of his innate power and the powers he connected to; a thick book bound with what looked like a grey reptile's hide landed heavily on his desk. He selected a fresh quill and dragged his inkwell over, and went to work on "A Casual Comparison of the Erratic Behavior of Locally-Aligned and Foreign-Aligned Magick in RhyDin's West End."