Hokay, so. This one needs some explanation before we get started.
I've been kicking around ideas for a total reboot of Fenspace as a setting. Among other things, this is part of the output. It's not really meant to replace the current version of Fenspace - despite my meanderings I'm not interested in scrapping six years of work just for the hell of it - but I feel compelled to share it, because if I inflict it on you then maybe I can get back to more canonical work.
Anyway, this isn't the Fenspace you're familiar with. It's not quite as blatantly magical, a little punkier, bigger in some ways and smaller in others. The 'Danelaw rules cislunar, there aren't any Fen factions like you know them, it takes a week or more to travel between Earth and Mars and the big new thing is the FTL engine that takes a mind-breaking two months to reach Alpha Centauri. Unless you're Fen, where the settlers of the outer system found an alien wormhole device out on a moon of Uranus, and crazy people go out and have adventures. Some of them even come back...
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
I've been kicking around ideas for a total reboot of Fenspace as a setting. Among other things, this is part of the output. It's not really meant to replace the current version of Fenspace - despite my meanderings I'm not interested in scrapping six years of work just for the hell of it - but I feel compelled to share it, because if I inflict it on you then maybe I can get back to more canonical work.
Anyway, this isn't the Fenspace you're familiar with. It's not quite as blatantly magical, a little punkier, bigger in some ways and smaller in others. The 'Danelaw rules cislunar, there aren't any Fen factions like you know them, it takes a week or more to travel between Earth and Mars and the big new thing is the FTL engine that takes a mind-breaking two months to reach Alpha Centauri. Unless you're Fen, where the settlers of the outer system found an alien wormhole device out on a moon of Uranus, and crazy people go out and have adventures. Some of them even come back...
Quote:Transcript of gatecrash debrief, December 12 20XX.Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
Interviewer: O. Simpson, Convention Security (Gate Division)
Interviewee: M. Fnord, team leader crasher group 023 (Order of St. Grimace)
Location: Grand Central FOB
Q: Okay, it's 0900 hours December 12 20XX. Everything from here on out is on the record.
A: Once more unto the breach, eh Liv?
Q: Something like that. You and your team always seem to be on the point when something strange happens.
A: What can I say? It's our wyrd. Honestly though I wouldn't mind if somebody else took up the banner for once.
Q: Law of averages, Mal. Now, your team was first-in through gate address PKX-18901, right?
A: Yeah. The first-link didn't show anything particularly promising locally, just another Selenian type rockball. But the camera picked up what looked like reflected light from a habitable planet, so they sent us to check it out.
Q: What was the ROE?
A: Stay near the gate; Selenians are dangerous but the dangers are pretty well documented so far. The gate was emplaced in a lava tube, so less chance of getting death-from-above via stray meteorite. We were to check out the habitable world remotely, telescope observations only, see if we could pick up any transmissions, and then return to Grand Central. Once we got the paydata, people who weren't us would take it from there.
~***~
"Okay, we're in. Starting logging. Ahem. This is the Order of St. Grimace travelogue of PKX-18901, Mal Fnord recording. So far, as you can see, we've got... rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. No atmosphere, gravity's about one-sixth standard so that matches the first-link report. We're going to set up base camp just over here to the side and then. Well, I guess then we'll take a look around outside."
~***~
A: Base camp went up pretty quickly, not our first time at the rodeo after all. So about a hour into the mission we were ready to head out and get a better look at the target.
Q: And that's when you saw it?
A: Yeah. The camera must picked up planetshine from a chimney in the tube. We got out of the cave and it was in the sky not quite at zenith, probably close to thirty-forty degrees.
~***~
The gatecrashers stepped out of the cave into glorious desolation. "Okay," the leader said, "So if the camera saw planetshine, and if it's not right in the entrance then it must be close to overhead..." he trailed off as he saw the Earth hanging full in the sky.
"Oh, you've got to be fucking KIDDING me!"
~***~
Q: What were your first impressions?
A: Honestly? I thought we might've come full circle and found a gate on Luna. I mean, that makes sense, Luna's not particularly well-explored outside of the settled areas and it's possible that a gate could be hiding in a nook somewhere if it's off the trade routes. So we radioed for a comm check and got nada. Once we got the telescopes set up we could see that all the orbitals weren't there, so obviously we weren't in Kansas anymore.
Q: And the next hypothesis?
A: Alternate universe.
Q: You're kidding.
A: Not really. Yes, it's really damned weird that 'alternate universe' is considered the sane and rational alternative to pure irrationality, but who the hell knows how the gates work? It was always a possibility that the wormholes weren't sending us around the galaxy but to other dimensions. Of course, we managed to put some data together that disproves that.
Q: How so?
A: The going theory is that if we end up in an alternate universe, the stars should be roughly the same as they are in ours. Only something really alternate, like one where the sun exploded a billion years before like evolved, should be one where the stars change. Or at least that's how I understood it. Anyway, the star patterns weren't the same as at home. They're similar, but all the regular suspects aren't visible. C-Sec's got the astrographic data?
Q: Yes. We've got people working on it as we're talking. Anyway, what happened next?
A: Honestly, not much more. Once we'd gotten our jaws back in place we spent the 36 hours doing the planned observations. Based on that, the place - Earth, Jesus I can't believe I'm taking this so calmly - is inhabited. We saw signs of large population centers, city lights and such, most of it round the Indian Ocean basin. Spectroscope analysis of the atmosphere indicates an industrial society, lots of coal burning, place'll have a nasty greenhouse problem in a hundred years or so. No radio transmissions, or at least nothing we could pick up from our spot.
Q: Do you think that the planet might have suffered through a nuclear war, like the one on Strangelove?
A: Not like the one on Strangelove, there's too much shit alive down there. We didn't see any signs of a nuclear war, but from that distance we might've missed it. It did look like somebody did something nasty to Europe and North America, might've been nukes. I guess we'll need to get a team closer for a better idea.
Q: So in your opinion this planet can't be the source of the Strangelove civilization?
A: Be nice if we could wrap that up with a neat bow, wouldn't it? No, the Strangelovians are too old, too technically advanced and they left their toys around. Even if these people were the Strangelovians only... regressed, we'd have seen debris in the high orbitals if nothing else. Here? Nada.
Q: Quite. So after you completed the observations you returned to Grand Central?
A: Couldn't do much of anything else, really. And people really needed to know about this nonsense.
Q: Mm. Well, Mal, I think that'll do for a supplementary. Anything you'd like to add for the record?
A: Only this. If C-Sec doesn't just wipe the address and pretend it never happened, my team wants in on the followup.
Q: Obviously I can't promise anything, but we'll see what we can do.
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"