Thanks to @rain-sleet-snow for the WIP Wednesday tag! I'm squeaking it in, but I wrote a follow-up to the last Sam and Aurelan ficlet dealing with the drip-drip-drip of info out of Tarsus IV:
Dr. Disii's face and rigid antennae did nothing to dispel the impression as the doors opened and his electric blue eyes settled on Sam. With a few brisk commands, he ushered five or six more communications officers—all lieutenants, lieutenant commanders, and commanders, Aurelan noticed—from the conference room.
"Dr. Kirk," he said, then glanced at Aurelan, not so much as rising from his uncomfortable-looking chair. "Dr. Trent. I'm afraid I don't—"
Aurelan hadn't expected him to even know her face, but she kept her grip on Sam's bicep firm. He was stammering something inarticulate out as she placed her other hand over his elbow.
"I came as emotional support," she said flatly. "From what we've seen, it's not going to be good news."
Dr. Disii glanced at her hands, then at his own, tightly folded on the long, shiny table in front of him. He just sighed and disentangled his fingers, gesturing for them to come through the doors.
"Sit," he said, gesturing at two chairs opposite him. "I trust I can depend on your discretion, Trent?"
"Yes, sir," said Aurelan, obeying before he could reconsider.
Once they sat down, Sam's inarticulate, fiddling nervousness settled. He flattened his hands on the table in front of them, his face filling with the kind of desperate intensity that seemed almost uniquely him—she'd certainly not seen anyone else come alive, even with this terrible urgency, in quite the same way.
"I'm guessing you've heard more about what happened to my father," said Sam. "You don't need to beat around the bush. Just tell me." His glance skittered sidewise towards Aurelan, the tight line of his mouth softening a little. "Us, I mean."
"I'm sorry," said Dr. Disii crisply. "As I mentioned before, the nearest starbase had received a clear authenticated message from Tarsus IV about a catastrophic accident in the labs killing the entire Starfleet science team on the colony, including your father. There seemed to be some problem with the electrical infrastructure that was already under repair, but all communications in or out went down almost immediately thereafter."
"That's not unusual," Sam said, his voice almost steady, though his quick breaths weren't. "My family's been out there for five years. The communication system is rudimentary at best, without amplification from starships or improvements to the facilities. Subspace calls from my parents or my sister go down all the time."
"We're aware," said Dr. Disii, with what Aurelan guessed was unusual patience for him. "We certainly didn't have any starships anywhere remotely nearby, though we sent what could be spared to investigate the catastrophe. However, just five days ago, someone on the colony—we don't know who—transmitted another message across all subspace bands. That choice limited the distance of reception, but did allow for it to be almost immediately picked up by any ship in the vicinity. Fortunately, a small merchant vessel was just near enough to receive the transmission, though they lacked the resources to unscramble it. We only just managed to wholly interpret it today."
Sam leaned forward, his eyes very bright and his hands curling. "Did it explain what happened?"
Aurelan risked adding, "And why was it scrambled?"
Disii inclined his head towards her. "The scrambling, at least, seems just a matter of poor equipment and a rushed transmission. And I'm afraid it doesn't exactly resolve the mystery of what happened in the laboratories, but Starfleet feels the families of those on Tarsus IV still have the right to know."
"To know what?" Sam demanded. Aurelan's mouth was dry, though she had no idea what to expect.
Disii's antennae wilted a bit as he met Sam's eyes across the table.
"There's been a famine, Dr. Kirk," he said. "According to the message we de-coded, it struck very quickly, very unexpectedly."
Aurelan caught a gasp behind her teeth, instead reaching out to lay her hand over Sam's. He was just staring at Disii, though his fingers curled around hers.
"Some kind of fungus got into the food," Disii went on, "the agriculture, everything as far as we can tell. Almost all functional equipment on the colony had been seized by Governor Kodos's administration, it seems to use to provide rations for as long as possible. Some rudimentary matter conversion, perhaps. The transmission was impossible to make out in some spots. But the fundamentals seemed clear enough. They were begging the Federation for relief."
Sam seemed to only hear half of it. "What do you mean, famine on a Federation colony? Fungus? I—I don't—I'm sorry, sir, I don't mean—it's just, my mother and sister are there. My mother's Ona Dunayevskaya, she's a Starfleet engineer, a lieutenant. She'd be helping lead anything they needed to do with the equipment to keep everyone alive as long as possible." His voice cracked like a boy's. "And my sister—she's just a kid."
"I'm very sorry," said Dr. Disii.
"Sir," Aurelan said, "we are going to send relief, aren't we? The Federation, that is?"
His silvery-white brows shot up. "Of course. As soon as enough of the transmission was understood, Starfleet internally classified the Tarsus IV situation as a humanitarian crisis."
I just stumbled across the following story in the 'Irish News' section of the 1741 issue of The Gentleman's and London Magazine; or Monthly Chronologer:
It's a darkly funny story until you realize that this happened during Bliain an Áir (English: the Year of Slaughter), one of the worst famines in Irish history. The fact that a brogue-maker ended up in debtor's prison suggests most of the Irish were too poor to afford shoes. This is horrifying when you consider the fact that the 1740-1741 famine was caused abnormally cold weather. Temperatures as low as 0º F (-18º C) were recorded in Ireland in 1740. Image trying survive that without shoes.
A collection of scrolls written by various scholars throughout the land of Meli. Circa 3,000 BPE (Before Peace Era)
(Archivist note: due to recurring themes within these scrolls, the translations have been abridged to prevent redundancies.) *content warnings in tags*
One hundred days of the dead remaining stubbornly alive, their moans of agony echo through the streets. One hundred days and two since the last sighting of the God Thanamortiel. Meanwhile, the forests have been dying; animals disappearing, guardians and spirits have left or died, even the grass has withered, wild mint is no more. The Fae have all left for home, no longer wishing for diplomacy with our peoples. One hundred and five days since Baccernna fell to his death before his followers in Purtor and Nature has died with him, Its allies abandoning us as we have failed. Crops have failed, livestock have died, if the Gods or the War don't kill us, the famine will. But even Death has abandoned us when Her love was killed by our hubris.
The once kind orc traders have been twisted, their verdant skin grows pallid and marred as stone, the death of balance has brought a disease to the gentle giants that shared their hunts and helped us build our great cities. This cursed war has tainted every good in this land and we are to blame. Unending for two thousand years and wee have only been made worse. The End is nigh and we shall either not survive or be cursed in undeath for all time. There is no escape. May what Gods remain hear our pleas and forgive our sins lest we suffer for eternity in undead agony.
We know a lot about Kallamar's past, we know about Shamura rein, we know abou Leshy selection and we know about Narinder's betray
BUT
What about Heket?
-alz, ew frogs are gross-me that one time before being jump in the face
-insomia teller, the explination for the story is simple, the girl never went to the same cabin- thanks for reading my rambles and goodbye, insomia teller will most likely never come back
Ohhh Heket! Heket the beloved.
I've stated in the past that the yellow crown is difficult to win over because it's a judgmental shit
SO. When Heket was claimed by the yellow crown, it was the crown of sate, and projected an aura of famine.
Heket was hatched and raised communally (as frogs/toads are,) in a small village in Anura.
(Fun fact, at the time she was born there, Anura belonged to Narinder!)
It's unclear why or how the yellow crown came to rest near her village, but, as crowns do, it began to cause shit immediately. Crops wouldn't grow, yes, but famine is not just food. Famine is a state of mind.
No one ever seemed to have enough of anything, fighting ravenously for food, money, sleep, space, anything. Heket was unaffected by this and, reasonably, horrified. So, she spent her time trying to get enough of everything for a younger tadpole she had grown fond of.
But Heket was like, 8. She couldn't fight the adults for food or resources, she could simply hide away and watch as most of it went down.
It was towards the end of it all when she won over the crown- people had starved, and lots had died. And her "sister," the other tadpole, was still hungry..
This is code for "Heket and Bathin ate someone's corpse," just so we're clear.
The act won her the yellow crown, and she dragged Bathin with her by the hand all the way to the temple of Concolor, where the closest crown sat.
Happy WBW! Does your world have any saints or something like that? What are their stories?
Thank you! And happy thursday for you since I am late to answer ahaha.
Uhm... I, unfortunately, do not have much to give you for this one for my current WIP. I know they exist, because the human religion would recognise martyrs and paragons of the virtues they recognise and other such figures. But I haven't developed them yet -.-'
However! So as not to leave you hanging, here are some saints I came up with for a Dusk City RPG. They are a bit Christian flavoured, fair warning, with some rough edges to them as the Vladich people are just like that tm - think Orthodox Russian Religion and the kind of people who can survive siberian winters, with a very strong militaristic culture. This is the sort of religion that such a culture gives birth too, and also helps to sustain such culture. They are big on family, honour and duty. They are also against magic.
(CW: all these people died in some mean ways because orthodox saints be like that; child death, famine, war, exploitation of the poor)
Ivan, the child who died instead of doing sorcery, patron Saint of... doing what's right in the face of adversity (?)
Mikhail, patron Saint of those killed in conflict
Alexandra, patron Saint of childbearing and child-rearing, enemy group came to get the children and the caretakers and she died defending them
Irena, patron Saint of mother's and childbirth, represents paternal sacrifices and death in childbirth
Juliana, patron Saint of the poor, died destitute despite coming from a rich family as she gave all her money and possessions away
Katya, patron Saint of Soldiers, often taken now by many in the Circle as their symbol. Originally she was a soldier in the Vladich Empire ranks who lead her battalion against her superior officers and their larger force because they were doing something bad (sorcery/exploiting the poor/ dishonourable combat). Though they were a smaller force they beat the traitors, but Katya, who fought bravely and wonderfully and was an amazing leader, died in the fight.
Bohdan, patron Saint of Farmers. A farmer who, upon collecting what he had sowed, realises they are short - either there is enough for the family to eat through winter or enough to replant next year but not both. He keeps this from his family, saves enough to be replanted next year and makes sure his family eats while he secretly goes without.
Tanya, Patron Saint of Family, Honour, Duty. Was a farmer who, upon collecting what her family had sowed that year and splitting it into enough food for the winter and enough to replant next spring, she is faced with raising taxes by the ruling lords of her territory. This is where the story diverges:
A) she pays the taxes dutifully, ends up starving. Two lessons are drawn from this, depending on who you ask: I) you shouldn't always follow orders, tsars care for themselves first not everyone; or, II) you should always follow orders even in the face of adversity.
B) she doesn't give the food to The tsars so that her family will survive the winter, as is killed. The lesson here is often Family above all in the code of honour, even duty and one owns life.
dad and I were talking about it because he's been watching it more than I have and he's been like 'if zelenskyy can hold out til christmas russia is gonna collapse' and. please. I feel like ukraine and the rest of the former soviet so deserve this.
but at the same time so much of the former soviet is territories within russia who are, if my dad predicts right, gonna be in a bunch of civil wars and end up with their people starving, just like back when the ussr collapsed for the first time. and not even to mention the thousands of russians who protested back in 2022 who are now in prison! so much of a dictatorship means the people within it suffer the most. no wonder ukraine is fighting so hard not to be! and I can't help but think of the examples of domestic terrorism i've seen posted by russians here and. all I can say is may it happen with the least harm done possible. may we be swift in our aid and may we learn to never repeat this. may the (now technically russian) groups seeking independence be freed. may ukraine stay free and be able to grieve but remember victory in years to come and just. minimise suffering please
