Chapter 4
“All intelligent species in existence are merely so many strains of bacteria infecting the Body Galactic. Humanity must strive to be the most antibiotic-resistant vermin imaginable.…”
Legacy Mandate by Emperor Yung I
There is nothing that creates greater focus in an intelligent species than the prospect of utter and immediate extinction. Thus humanity’s first encounter with an intelligent starfaring alien species, the “Slaggers” as they came to be known, resulted in vast changes to human society.
The slaughter of the entire populations from a few planets in 5202 rang through the surviving worlds, galvanized human ferocity, and left an indelible mark on nearly every aspect of the human Imperium.
The brilliant military leader of the Li Dynasty, Admiral Yung, led humanity’s forces to victory over the Slaggers, but he didn’t stop there. He overthrew the effete Emperor, Khan Li, established the House system, wrote the Legacy Mandate, and created massive reforms of the Vested Citizens and demi-cit processes.
He incidentally flogged the Imperial Fleet into a state intended to drive tactical and technical innovation. This, conjoined with the social reforms that opened merit pathways to full citizenship, poured streams of heavyworlders into Fleet positions. No longer were heavyworlders the abject gutter of the social ladder. They elected to promote to Vested Citizenship at higher rates than their lighter-world compatriots, they provided superior performance in Fleet ships that were (in that era) subject to constant high-gravity conditions, and they could no longer be blithely dishonored without risk of a dueling blade through the vitals.
For a few short years the heavyworld citizens shot toward total dominance in Fleet. Then the second nonhuman intelligence entered the scene of humanity’s affairs, and with this new contact came the artificial gravity technology that ended the heavyworld path to domination.
The second alien encounter for the Imperium arrived in heart-stopping suddenness, the memory of the Slaggers and wholesale slaughter all too fresh in mankind’s memory. The first Shaper armada simply appeared in Core system, in vessels so vast they could contain the entire Imperial Fleet. Peaceful intentions were easily discerned. If they had desired war, no one doubted the outcome.
As soon as rudimentary communication was established between the Emperor and the Shapers, trade began. The technology flowing from the Shapers stood so far above human capabilities that many technologies provided were thought theoretically impossible, and these “magical” treasures swiftly became the most desirable human possessions in the galaxy. Artificial gravity generators created one great ripple within the Imperium, but a new interstellar drive system restructured the Imperium overnight. Powerful implantable computers, radiation and kinetic shield generators, and universal fabrication machines continued the shock wave.
But perhaps the single greatest impact upon humanity came from the Shaper longevity advancements. These treatments and the related rejuv technology pushed human vitality and youth to new heights. Instead of a century of health, those with the necessary financial resources might expect four centuries or more of youth. As scientists of the Imperium optimized Shaper longevity technologies, the effectiveness gradually increased.
The reborn Imperium under Yung I rippled with the ramifications of Shaper advancements. That ripple continued for centuries as Shaper tech flowed out to the fringes of the Imperium’s Myriad Worlds and trickled down to the lower strata of the social ladder. Of course humanity attempted to reverse engineer the technological wonders bestowed upon them, and occasionally succeeded. Still, it took nearly three centuries to discover that the Shaper interstellar drive held the key to nearly everything the Shapers provided.
The Shaper’s N-drive thrust starships into some realm or dimension that defied all theories, all measurement, all comprehension. It came to be known as “N-space,” for obvious reasons. A starship actuated the N-drive, transitioning into N-space for a brief subjective and objective period of time, and emerged from N-space light-years distant. It was magic…very, very expensive magic.
Shaper fuel cells swiftly became the most valuable commodity in known space, and N-space transitions gobbled up Shaper fuel with heartbreaking rapidity. Still, it beat years or decades of constant acceleration, which was the only other alternative with humanity’s own stutter-drive technology.
Over time, humanity’s engineers discovered some interesting effects during those brief N-space transitions. In the midst of a transition, light and time behaved differently, for starters. Then they realized that many Shaper mechanisms, such as crystal computers, suddenly and dramatically increased their performance, producing output and calculations at ten times or one thousand times greater efficiency and speed. This led to several key epiphanies.
First, it became clear that the Shapers’ immense ships were not merely transporters of trade goods, they were vast interstellar factories. They constructed their amazing devices and gathered mysterious energies during unimaginable interstellar voyages, because these capabilities could only be touched within the envelope of N-space.
Even with this knowledge, humanity could not curb its dependence upon the Shapers. True, most starships now carried fab systems to quickly manufacture advanced tech items during their all-too-brief transitions through N-space, but true N-space “factories” remained far out of reach.
The N-drive transitioned starships through the corridor of N-space, invisible light-years sailed by in minutes, and the starship popped back out at the desired location in ridiculously short periods of time. A trip of ten light-years might take fifteen minutes instead of a decade. This meant that very little production could take place inside that envelope of N-space minutes.
Aside from the vast expense of N-space transition, there was yet another catch. Any destination fed to the N-drive system must be fully ray-mapped. This meant humanity’s N-drive-equipped vessels could only visit star systems that they had already visited and mapped. Meaning that at the start of Emperor Yung V’s reign, Imperium vessels could travel just scores of N-space minutes from one edge to the other edge of known space. And, of course, each such transition consumed Shaper fuel cells available only from the Shapers themselves.
The end result was that ninety-seven percent of Shaper tech flowed only from the Shapers, despite humanity’s best efforts.
For the Yung Dynasty, the bright side continued to be that the Shapers dealt only with Imperial representatives, so all Shaper tech flowed through Imperial hands, while every Fleet and private starship utilized every moment of N-space to create Shaper-type tech as efficiently as possible. All in all, it was a good system…for the Yung Dynasty at least.
On a quantum-entangled communicator, the Shapers sent lists of desired raw materials from wherever they happened to be to the Emperor, and the Emperor, in turn, dealt out nuggets from the Shapers’ shopping list as Imperial favors to his favored subjects. Each time, before the Shaper armada arrived in Core system, the Emperor held millions of tons stocked up and waiting. Every seven or eight Core years the Shaper armada appeared, and vast containers hauled by Fleet vessels flowed from the lockers of Core Alpha, the vast orbital platform above Imperial City, out to the visitors. In turn, cases and cases of shield generators, fab machines, implantables, N-drives, and various formulations of nanotech returned from the armada, filling those same lockers in Core Alpha.
Those lucky Houses who directly supplied the Shapers’ needs obtained the first cut of the Shaper inventory—after the Imperial slice, of course. The less-fortunate Houses either found themselves tightening the belt and waiting another seven years for the next armada, or working out arrangements with those Houses currently basking in the glow of Imperial favor.
New Shaper shipments flowed outward from Coreworld, mostly on House Trade vessels. On every human world, access to Shaper tech represented the only real wealth, and the value of any commodity became established by its relationship to Shaper trade demands.
Sometimes the Shaper armada appeared, demanding some commodity in addition to their pre-transmitted list. Families had risen to significance when the Shapers abruptly requested ten thousand tons of some unexpected material that the House just happened to possess. One arriving armada added the bizarre items of wood products and a particular strain of yeast—both desired in vast quantities—and the only House to possess inventories of these products profited greatly.
Through the centuries, the established Houses attempted to predict and cover any likely Shaper demand, eventually forming a loose guild called, simply, Trade.
Trade formed a powerful network with a constantly shifting hierarchy that shared or hoarded information, analyzed Shaper commodity trends, and, most important, worked together to amass vast quantities of every imaginable product ready to supply each incoming armada.
In the rare instances when some items on the Shapers’ shopping list could not be provided before their departure, the economy of the Imperium quaked. Less trade meant less Shaper tech to receive, and that meant even higher prices. Every soul in the Imperium immediately knew that the already exorbitant necessities provided by the Shapers became that much harder to obtain. With another near-decade to wait for the next armada, crazed levels of acquisition overset markets, and fortunes in real property shifted from party to party, House to House.
It was in everyone’s best interest that the Shapers obtained all the trade goods they desired and, more important, that they left as much of their invaluable tech behind as possible.
Thus, with the QE comm link to the Shapers in Imperial hands, the Emperor cemented control of the most valuable pipeline in human history. At random times between armadas, the QE comm dribbled out lines of text describing the Shaper shopping list. Those humble lines of text became golden morsels, doled out to various Houses and coalitions.
Among the thousands of parties jockeying for Imperial favor, the Sinclair-Maru family possessed a history and natural resources that should have equaled nearly any House in the Imperium. Aside from land and sea holdings on the planet of Battersea, producing plant and mineral abundance, the Sinclair-Maru family also held an extensive claim in the rich asteroid belt of the Battersea system.
Hawksgaard, a Sinclair-Maru base and processing center in the asteroid belt, had once been the most elaborate (and profitable) such facility in the Imperium, but centuries of decline in the Family fortunes appeared quite visibly there now.
After so many years on a slow downward glide, the Sinclair-Maru Family leaders took the extraordinary step of placing one of the “younger” generation in the House executor seat. Cabot Sinclair-Maru and those of his generation—all of whom enjoyed the benefit of full Shaper rejuv from the years of their more affluent youth—stepped down from leadership, relegated to counselors.
“Young Bess,” the Family leaders figured, would view their plight from a more modern perspective, and since her un-regenerated days of life drew rapidly toward a close, she might enjoy the wonderfully sharpening effect of impending death itself to figure a way out of their fix.
She instituted many immediate reforms, trimming back some House efforts, while expanding other areas. She invested heavily in updating Hawksgaard to more modern standards, expanding the bio-med research labs, and optimistically securing more warehouse space in Core Alpha. She also outfitted the House Trade delegation to a more modern, lavish style. In Trade, she knew, appearance mattered nearly as much as substance, and the Sinclair-Maru suffered from a challenging has-been image.
With the next Shaper armada expected within two years, the Sinclair-Maru Trade delegation finally seemed to make headway, the Hawksgaard facility finally began clearing a profit once again, and in the midst of this Bess called an immediate and mysterious Family meeting.
Most of the family leaders assumed it must involve the recent Ericson Cluster uprising, and in a way it did.