Song of the Void

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”Which of the Arkships did you have in mind?” Clolarion asked as the Enduring Symphony slipped through the defensive net of ships that surrounded the Dhar home galaxy. The ships prevented any phase travel as well, so the only way to enter the galaxy even now was via warp.

“They are all here and accounted for, I assume?” Selendil made sure and Clolarion’s combat droid made a gesture of agreement in confirmation. “Well, some of them are quite ancient and use out of date technology, so we would likely be better off with one of the newer ones.”

“I had assumed that you would keep updating your ships over time considering your technological prowess.” Xiaoli pointed out an incongruity in Selendil’s words.

“For normal ships we often did.” Nox explained. “Although we usually saved proper overhauls for when there were some significant improvements to be made. The one downside of our ship construction is that they’re not really designed for large overhauls in mind. We are pretty much the opposite of the Tetrarchy. Where their ships were extremely modular and thus easy to update, our ships are not. We can modify the insides of a ship in many ways, but the outer hull and the superstructure are what they are and can’t really be changed without essentially rebuilding the whole thing. That’s the downside of using the materials that we do. When it comes to Arkships however…”

“Arkships are in many ways the greatest technological projects we ever created and the construction of even one can take almost a thousand years," Clolarion stated. "There's a reason the Arkships were the most pivotal part of our expansion. As for completely overhauling one, it would be easier to just build a new one instead. Tearing apart and rebuilding an old one would actually take longer than building one from scratch. You’ll understand when you actually see one.”

“Well then, which of them is the newest?” Lilly asked the obvious question.

“That would be Tal’Nachazzar and by a rather wide margin.” Clolarion gave an immediate answer.

“That was finished?” Selendil asked with clear surprise in her voice. “Last I knew, Tal’Nachazzar was incomplete, and I’m quite certain the leader of the project is among the people I’ve preserved. Their talent in shipbuilding is quite special after all.”

“The project was 95% complete when the plague hit. Understandably there was no will to continue with the project once it became obvious that the ship would no longer be needed. However, I had the necessary materials in storage and nothing but time while waiting for the final traces of the plague to disappear, so I completed the project to the best of my ability. I thought it was a shame for something that the Dhar had spent so long building to be left unfinished so close to completion. There are few things that I couldn’t quite accomplish without psionic powers, but those should not take too long to handle and you mentioned something about Jump cores. I assume that fitting those in will take some time anyway. The fact that you have the project leader preserved should also make things a lot easier.” Clolarion explained.

“In that case, we’ll definitely take Tal’Nachazzar. The project was supposed to be something of a magnum opus of our shipbuilding. There’s just a slight…issue with that.” Selendil was convinced even if she knew the vessel came with certain problems.

“What kind of issue?” Amaterasu asked warily. She somehow knew that dealing with the issue would likely mean work for her.

"It's easier to just show you," Selendil said cryptically. "Where is the ship? We might as well go there first and get this project started. It's going to take a while to make the modifications and get the ship ready to travel.”

“It’s not that far. Since the phase drives are already operational, I moved the vessel to Lunarion Shipyards to finish the project. They had the largest stores of the required materials and heavy-duty construction facilities." Clolarion replied.

“Ironic.” Nox said in a quiet voice. Lunarion was the system where the Solarians had been born, and the Dhar had put the system to better use after renaming it. “But that makes things easier. You’ll also get to see the Jump drive in action.”

Their ship was swallowed by the energy window of the hyperjump and they arrived at their destination in a blink of an eye. "Impressive," Clolarion stated. "I can see how that could be useful in an area with no warp beacons."

“Which is almost everywhere now that most of the old beacons have stopped working.” Nox pointed out.

The system they arrived in was different from anything the crew had seen before. The star in the center was much larger than normal, and it was surrounded by what would have been called an orbital ring if it had surrounded a planet. The orbital ring was large enough to be counted as a megastructure and it was wholly dedicated to shipbuilding, drawing energy and mass for the nano-fabricators from the star itself. In addition to the primary shipyards at the orbital ring, there were many secondary facilities close to the star that reminded them of the facility the synthetic race of Dawn Collective had stolen for their megaproject. These facilities were used to make the internal system and different parts for the ships that the shipyards then assembled into completed ships. There were thousands of ships in various states of construction in the cradles along the orbital ring.

There were only three habitable planets in the system, but there were hundreds of almost planet-sized clumps of matter that were orbiting the star at a safe distance. None of them had coalesced into actual planets though, as they were simply large collections of what essentially looked like debris held together by large force fields. All of these clumps were different materials used to construct ships of various sizes and types, and they had clearly been brought into the system from the outside.

“When the Dhar decide to do something, they really don’t bother half-assing it," Xiaoli said in a joking tone but she was quite serious with her words.

“Where’s the ship we’re here for?” Amaterasu was the first to recover from the sight.

“Cradle 3085.” Clolarion supplied the exact location. In a twist of fate, it had been the Dhar that started calling the structure around a ship being built a cradle, and the word had survived all the way to this day through the various client races. Even if the different languages had their own word, the meaning was still the same.

“Right.” Nox said and made an in-system jump to bring them closer.

What they found in the large bay used for construction made the already stunned crew mute in shock. The whole vessel was constructed of the same material as the central section of the Enduring Symphony. The crystalline material looked almost like liquid mercury. It was just opaque enough that you couldn’t see through it, but it reflected the darkness and stars of space almost like a slightly unclear mirror. The enormous ship was shaped like someone had flattened out a sphere and cut the bottom half off, creating a slowly sloping circular shape with a small dome at the center. It had a long spiral coming out from the underside and the spiral held the propulsion and engine systems of the vessel. At the center of the central dome on the upper side of the ship was a tall tower, jutting out like a spike.

“How big is that thing? It’s at least a dozen times bigger than the new Titan-class vessels we constructed.” Amaterasu asked in a reverent voice.

“It’s better if you don’t think too hard about it. The surface area alone is the same as a large city, and it naturally has quite a few decks.” Nox replied, knowing that at such enormous sizes, exact numbers lost meaning.

"I think I'm starting to understand why it takes so long to build one, and why you don't want to refit ships of this size," Xiaoli muttered.

“A ship like that could comfortably house millions of people. Tens of millions?” Amaterasu started to understand the ‘issue’ Selendil had mentioned.

"Well, it is an Arkship." Selendil pointed out. "It's supposed to carry a large number of people over long distances and be self-sufficient. Just like other ships, it can have a much higher density of people than actual cities, and that's without accounting for the extensive stasis blocks, but it's not like the whole ship is dedicated to housing people. One quarter is mainly for manufacturing, engineering, shipyards, and other such endeavors. One quarter is for hydroponics and science. One quarter is for housing and all that goes with it. A ship of this size needs amenities not found on normal ships like shops and services, and education like schools that go all the way from childhood to adults needing more training. The final quarter is for miscellaneous stuff.”

“Miscellaneous?” Xiaoli asked suspiciously.

“Well, it’s not really meant to be a military vessel, but it has weapons. A ship of this size needs quite a bit of security, and that security needs training facilities, barracks, and armories. Then there are storage facilities and other such sundries. Basically, anything that doesn't fall into the other three categories.” Nox explained with a smile. “Just like other Dhar vessels, this one is much larger on the inside of course. However, the ship has been designed with minimal spatial enlargement in mind.”

“How much crew will it require to function?” Amaterasu asked, already making plans in her mind.

“That depends.” Nox shrugged. “Theoretically you could have just a single AI operate the ship, but the ship would not be operating even close to its optimal capacity. For example, the manufactories can, to a large extent, work with pure AI control, but an AI will not be able to produce the kinds of results a trained and psionically skilled smith can. Nor will it operate as quickly and efficiently. The hydroponics alone are designed for thousands of Dhar per shift, but I think the Guardians could handle it with less people. They have a real magic touch for the job after all. Besides, if the ship isn’t filled with people, then the hydroponics don’t need to function at 100% capacity. The same applies to many other areas. Basically, the more people you have, the more crew you will need, but the more you’ll get out of the ship.”

“I think I’ll be able to attract quite a few Cybrans to come along. The prospect of being able to tinker with such advanced tech and potentially travel to other universes will be a powerful lure. We’re also already used to a life on a city-sized ship, though not quite this big. We can contribute to the engineering department and manufacturing. Of course, the downside is that the more people we invite, the more the quality will go down along with their potential loyalty.” Xiaoli stroked her jaw in thought. It was easy to keep a dozen people loyal and motivated. Thousands or even millions was a different thing altogether.

“The same with Illum. We can perform a variety of roles as we have done so far. Thanks to our genetic enhancements, we can be suited for almost anything, and if we lure people with potential other enhancements like the nanites…well, we will have a pool of recruits for sure.” Amaterasu added, not wanting the Cybrans to get ahead on something like this.

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to get too many Mrrroww even if we deal with the Shaer threat. Our people have been at constant danger lately and they seem to be living in crisis mode. They need rest.” Lilly said a bit apologetically. “However, I can help you with convincing more Guardians. Especially if you lend me the Shinzen that looks like a puppy made of plants.”

“It sounds like we have the beginnings of a plan. Remember though that we don’t have to limit our recruitment to just your galaxy. I’m sure we could convince some Eriad to join us as well. Besides, we might meet some people while traveling to other universes that want to join us.” Selendil pointed out. “Let’s start with making sure the ship is ready to go, while we plan what to do with the Dhar AIs.”

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“We’re going to have to redesign the Jump drives almost from scratch.” Nox’s voice sounded off in Selendil’s head while she was finishing work on a system that ran through most of the ship. The memories and expertise of the one that had designed the vessel helped greatly as she felt like she knew the ship like she had personally built it by hand.

“Why?” Selendil asked curtly, her focus on her work.

“Because of the differences in both size and power output between this ship and your old one.” Clolarion’s voice joined Nox. “We could theoretically just upscale the thing, but it would only retain a small part of its efficiency. Or that was the theory until we realized that being hooked to several of our power generators at the same time will almost certainly fry the damn thing.”

An Arkship of this size had more than one of the power cores that functioned as the main source of power for smaller ships like the Enduring Symphony. It wasn’t because a birth of a universe wasn’t sufficient to provide enough power for a ship of this size. It was more the case that transferring that power over such a large system was extremely inefficient and taxing. And there was also the fact that a larger ship like this was capable of utilizing more than one power core like that, and more power was always more power. There had always been a prevailing idea among the Dhar that if they could do more, why wouldn’t they? More power, more weapons, more wars, more galaxies, more planets, more everything. If a lot of power was a good thing, more power was better! Even if it did sometimes create problems like this.

“So. We’ll need to create a custom solution just for this ship alone.” Selendil deduced from the information provided.

“On the upside, if we do get it working, that’ll mean bigger range and less time wasted on waiting for the system to cool down.” Nox pointed out.

“I have the feeling that this project is going to take a lot longer than making the finishing touches on this ship. Clolarion, modify the ship’s internal structure to account for a larger central Jump system. In the meantime, we’re going to have to settle on old fashioned warp and phase travel with the occasional Jump using Enduring Symphony’s jump system.” Selendil decided. They wouldn’t stick around waiting here until she finished the design. That could take months if not years. They could always return if they needed the shipyards in this system for the modifications.

“Just remember that the range will be a lot shorter if the Enduring Symphony has to move something this big.” Nox reminded her. The Enduring Symphony was capable of making a Jump window large enough to take the Arkship along as well, but there would be certain limitations.

“Well, on the upside, this ship has the most advanced and powerful Phase drives ever created. It won’t be that much slower.” Selendil countered. The Arkships were designed for maximal speed in phase space as they had to travel between the empty void between galaxies. This vessel was capable of entering deeper into phase space than any other vessel and could travel at hundred times the speeds of a normal Dhar ship.

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“So are we finally done with the new rules for the AIs?” Lilly asked with a weary tone. They had spent weeks hashing out the exact wording and contents of the order they would send out. They had closed every loophole they could while still giving the AIs as much freedom as possible. Most of this had been done by the officers since they represented the new races that would possibly have to contend with the old Dhar AIs. Nox, Haven, Clolarion, and Crystal helped of course, bringing their own input. The final result was something that could be called an agreement between the AIs and the younger races.

“I think we’ve done the best we can. There’s no way we’ll be able to cover all the bases, and even if we could, that wouldn’t be much of a freedom. Like Lilly said before, they need to be free enough to make their own mistakes.” Xiaoli replied with a small grimace.

“I can still see this whole thing going horribly wrong.” Amaterasu pointed out. “On the other hand, we don’t really even know how many Dhar AI still remain. It might be that we did all this for almost no reason.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Nox retorted shaking her head. “The AIs might not have been very active before due to still being shackled, but many of them still exist.”

“So how are we going to get this thing disseminated?” Lilly asked, more concerned with that.

"You don't," Selendil replied, teleporting into the room that was on top of the spire at the center of the Arkship. "I will. You can't approach the place I'm going to I'm afraid."

“Why not?” Xiaoli asked.

"Because she needs to go to the heart of the warp network," Clolarion explained. “Only a Dhar can enter. Well, an energy being with sufficient knowledge about the warp network could, but…”

“I’m going to the center of the galaxy. It’s where we built the very first warp gates. Originally the system was powered by the center of our galaxy, but that became obsolete as our empire expanded far enough. The facility that remains is more ceremonial and symbolic than anything practical at this point, but it remains one of the few places where one can interface with the network without access to the shared consciousness of the Dhar. Clolarion is right in the sense that the energy density of the area would kill anyone that is not an energy being, and the only way to enter is to warp there personally. Even our ships have trouble approaching the place. However, you won't be missing much. The place is ancient and there isn't much to see there. It has symbolic value as I said, but that's about it. There's really nothing special to see once you've seen other Dhar facilities." Selendil went into more detail.

“So you’ll just go there and send a signal via the warp network? And the network will help disseminate the information? Is that about the gist of it?” Xiaoli confirmed.

“Yes. The network wasn’t really designed for something like this, which is why it’ll take time for the information to be spread around, but it should work.” Selendil replied.

“And if it doesn’t work properly?” Lilly asked.

“Then it doesn’t work. I’m certainly not going to visit every galaxy just to spread this around. We have one shot. Either it works or it doesn’t. It’s that simple.” Selendil stated with finality.