Fwurg

[Veolian Commonwealth]

((OOC: This thread is private to the Veolian Commonwealth and the Teprogranaian consensus.))

When the hovercar pulled into the Veolian embassy grounds, it became clear why the Veolian's had opted to to maintain their own embassy, instead of relying upon the senate buildings to provide for embassy space. Unlike some of the other factions, the Veolian Commonwealth clearly did not try to reduce the costs of their embassy here on Unity.

From driving to the embassy building it became clear that the embassy grounds consisted of three separate zones: a public area consisting of a beautiful garden (which might be considered a waste of space by some, due to Unity's limited real estate) with a central fountain around which several buildings offered information and other services to the public.

The second zone consisted of the main embassy building: an elegant cone-shaped highrise with around 35 floors, surrounded by smaller buildings connected by skybridges. Some of the smaller buildings tote impressive communications arrays pointed into space. The entrance to the main embassy building was paved with polished black marble, and flagpoles carried the banners of the Union, the Veolian Commonwealth, and each of the six great houses. Security measures were subtle, but clearly noticeable for those looking for them.

The final zone, the courtyard, is formed by two wings of the main embassy building, surrounding a large courtyard, and nearly coming together at the other side. The two arms are connected by a gate building, while the courtyard itself sports a large landing area, partly filled by the Naukā-lon-dorne and a few other, smaller, vessels.

As the Teprogranaian vehicle came to a stop in front of the main embassy building, a single Twi'lek woman could be seen standing just inside the embassy as well as four guards on each side of the red carpet leading into the embassy.

[Tayu Shanora]

Upon entering the embassy, senator Danar Tassar was greeted by a Twi'lek woman with a formal bow.

"Good afternoon, senator Tassar", the Twi'lek woman started. "I am Tayu Shanora, one of her imperial majesty's personal belongings. If you and your wife please follow me, I will take you to the terrace."

She then led the way through the rather spatious embassy building. Along the way it became clear that the display of wealth on the embassy grounds was not just a front to look prosperous, but that the Veolians didn't spare any expense on their embassy.

The Twi'lek woman led the three Teprogranaian's to a large elevator, and told the bellboy to go to the terrace. With a short bow, the bellboy quickly pressed a few buttons, and the elevator began its ascend.

When the doors opened, it appeared the elevator had stopped in a small building on a patch of grass high in the sky. Looking around, the analytical mind could quickly deduce that the small building stood on top of the embassy, and that the grass was actually the roof.

The Twi'lek led the small group out of the elevator and to a terrace facing toward the senate buildings. While walking there, Danar Tassar spotted a large swimming pool in another part of the roof garden.

The terrace featured rough hewn stone as a floor, and a few comfortable-looking chairs. On the table stood a single ornate Teprogranaian tea drinker of traditional design, a very old one it seemed.

The Twi'lek girl subtle gestured towards the comfortable seats. After the guests sat down, she bowed deeply and said: "My mistress will be with you shortly. In the meantime, is there anything I can do for you or your wife?"

[Senator Danar Tassar]

At first Tassar seemed a little concerned that the twi'lek so willingly introduced herself as somebody else's property, but then he realized that she probably was her entire life a slave, and that she had a good life at the court of the commonwealth.

"Thank you, Tayu Shanora", the teprogranaian senator started, "I must say, the location for the meeting is of excellent choice."

The senator and his wife took place in the chairs near the table, the aide took place more behind Mirabi. She did clearly not intervene and was only there to check on Mirabi.

Mirabi herself did not appear weak however, but was in fact a firm teprogrenaian woman which held her head straight up and sat with a straight back. She looked at the twi-lek and asked: "Before I accidentally create an diplomatic incident, the correct way to announce your mistress is empress Saret Neferti, your majesty or your highness, correct?".

She spoke with a stable and natural voice.

[Tayu Shanora]

The Twi'lek woman directed her attention toward the senator's wife.

"My mistress is officially announced as Her Imperial Majesty the First Empress Consort of Veolia."

The Twi'lek smiled at the teprogranaian woman: "But I think you much prefer to know how she would be addressed, would you not? My mistress is addressed as imperial majesty. For example, if she were standing next to me, I would address her as 'Your Imperial Majesty'. If one speaks of her in the third person, she would be addressed as Her Imperial Majesty."

"In subtle situations as these, my mistress will probably not take offence at being addressed as your majesty or empress. However, it is best to refrain from addressing her as your highness, as this style of address is reserved for lesser family members of the imperial family."

"And finally", the twi'lek continued in a slightly softer voice, "though you could address her as such, I advice you to not use her name unless used in full. Addressing her as Neferti, or even empress Neferti, would imply a certain level of intimacy. And though she will not take offence at this, it will create expectations that you might feel uncomfortable about."

Directing her attention toward the senator, she said: "The same goes for you senator. With the exception that if you used her name like that, my mistress will be offended."

"We still have a few minutes before my mistress arrives."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"Thank you, we will address her as 'Your Imperial Majesty' then."

He and his wife looked at each other for a second. Both didn't had anything left to ask, so Tassar made clear they had no questions and they would wait for the empress.

[Empress Saret Neferti]

After a few minutes, soft footsteps could be heard from the small building.

The twi'lek, who was still sitting in the ground, bowed to the albino veolian woman that stepped onto the terrace.

"Miss Fecta Mirabi, senator Danar Tassar.", she said with a curt nod, "It is an honour to meet you in person."

The empress remained standing for now.

[Senator Danar Tassar]

The moment the empress entered the room, the three teprogrena stood up and all three bowed for the empress.

"Your Imperial Majesty," spoke Tassar, "you flatter me, as the honour is all mine." The senator walked a few steps towards the empress, but kept a formal distance.

"To be honest, I didn't even expect to get an audience, given the probably very busy agenda of Your Imperial Majesty."

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"I make it a point to allocate enough time to meet with the representatives of Union members. As our factions cooperate on equal footing, it is important to stay in contact, and to have opportunities where we can honestly discuss matters without the work-feeling associated with discussing things with another senator."

The empress selected a seat which allowed her to both a good view of Unity city, and to look at the senator and his wife directly. While sitting down, she subtly motioned for the teprogranaians to be seated. The twi'lek woman came up from her bow as well, and leaned towards the empress' chair, as if to be a little closer to the veolian.

"I must admit that I had little knowledge about teprogranaian customs with regard to the drinking of tea. So when my Tayu returned to me with this very interesting device", she pointed out the ancient tea-drinker on the table, "I was rather surprised.

Before we drink, maybe you could tell me a bit about the history of this device? There is must be a social significance to drinking from a shared fluid?"

[Senator Danar Tassar]

The teprogrenaian delegation took their seats again. Upon the question from the empress, Tassar smiled for as far he actually could smile.

"It is interesting that ask, for as the origin of this question is actually why other societies do not share their fluids." The senator did put extra emphasis on the word 'not'. "Our species is evolved out of a prey, instead of a hunter on top of the food chain. This made us a tight community. We never started war with each other and couldn't afford brute violence towards each other.

I have learned that most other species in the universe have evolved out of a predator. With the result of much more competition. These people formed groups for hunting to be more successful, and eventually they encountered other groups of hunters from the same species. In the end, these groups form alliances and start wars with to get more power over the food. This results in a lot of distrust making everyone drinking out of their personal cup to ensure it is safe to drink.

Although evolution does not necessarily go this way, it appears to be a rather common path for evolution to follow.

The teprogrena never have really experienced war and distrust this way. First we all drank from the same pool, we drank from the same well and although the society has became a lot more individualistic, the part of drinking together never changed."

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"So, there has never been a war on your world. I could see how this would happen if resources have always been plentiful, and the environment has been able to support the growth of your population up till now. Though I must say that this sounds very unfamiliar to me.

It has been a matter of some debate, but amongst Veolian scientists there is consensus that the veolian species descends from the joining of two species: one carnivorous and one herbivorous. Though there is no accepted theory on how this union came to be. Some theories posit that instead of a carnivorous and herbivorous species, both species were omnivorous already, but one of them was a predatory species while the other was a prey-species."

"In any case, I would like to share tea with you, in this fine day."

The empress reached for the twi'lek woman, and softly stroked her face. "Shanora, please fetch the tea. We will have the blue Yasmin blend."

The twi'lek woman got up quickly and walked into the small building only to return moments later with a wooden tray. On the tray she carried a large porcelain bowl a few instruments and a small bag. She put down the tray, sat down on the ground next to the table, and opened the bag. She carefully shook the bag to drop tea leaves into the bowl of water, and used one of the instruments to stir.

After about thirty seconds of silence during which the empress clearly focused on the twi'lek, the purple woman put down the instrument, and picked up another one. With a short stir she got all the tea leaves to form a column in the centre of the bowl, and with practised ease she scooped up all the leaves and blossoms. Having cleared the bowl, she opened the tea drinker, and slowly poured the tea into the drinker.

She then handed the first drinking cord to the empress, and then handed a cord to Mirabi and Tassar.

"Let us drink to continued cooperation, and a prosperous future", the empress said, before taking a slow sip.

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"That we may never encounter a war." And the senator also took a sip of the tea. "Hmm, excellent tea."

Danar Tassar took a moment to enjoy the view of the city, before he started talking again: "When we first developed space travel, it was quite a shock for us in how many chaos the universe was drenched in. Although we knew species were likely able to commit quite some cruelties, we did exterminated all the predators who hunted us after all, we never imagined people started wars for very unlikely reasons, or just to start a war.

The first space battles we where in engage were really really bad for us. With no experience at all we lost a lot of our forces. But we learned fast and manage to keep our head above the water. Now we have a variety of ships and troops to defend ourselves against the majority of threats. As our motto is: 'Never fire first, but be prepared if the other does.' "

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"I think that it is not a whole species that is likely to commit cruelties, I think it is the culture that brings such things about. For example, in the past, the Commonwealth has warred with human factions. It appears that some of them have a culture of dominance, they executed and tortured our husbands while they kept our daughters alive for other purposes. Others did not appear to do this, but instead tried to keep casualties to a minimum on both sides.

Of course, both groups eventually surrendered to the Veolian Commonwealth, but the point remains that though they were both factions of humans they behaved very differently."

The empress took another sip.

"It is also my observation that wars are not started just to start a war. And most likely there was a good reason to start them, maybe you did not look at it from within the reference frame of their culture? Could you give an example of an unlikely reason?"

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"It appeared to us that a lot of species are quite capable of committing cruelties, even our own. It is up to the individual to commit it or not, but looks like almost every specie is genetically programmed to have at least the mental prowess to do so.

And of course, one who grew up with violence is more likely to commit violence, and one who never ever saw any kind cruelty will likely be disgusted by the slightest kind of gore. But in the end, give people some social pressure and apparently they will do anything, from genocide to torture. With individual exceptions of course."

The senator took a sip from his tea. Before he continued, with a sadder tone: "Before the times of chaos, there was this man who had manage to set up two factions against each other," the eyes of the senator turned dark and looked in to nothing, "because he loved the sight of so much hate, anger, pain. When the two factions were worn out, he step up as their salvation and took control. Later he turned out to be a sith and was eradicated by the jedi, but this doesn't change that the factions did not really had something to win by attacking the other. I was not there of course, so I don't know what exactly happened that time, but only because a sith did some whispering the two factions went in an all out war. And our history books suggest that they quite enjoyed it."

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"Of course, when extraordinarily powerful individuals exert their influence, considerations of cost and benefit analyses and other rationales will be thrown out of the window. Because of this, it is imperative that we strive to better ourselves, and to become more than we are. Only in this way can we offer resistance to such individuals; the weak amongst us look toward the strong for protection, and the strong in turn look toward the weak for support and comfort.

At least, such has been the way of the Veolians for time immemorial. This is why the hemet veolians have a duty to rule, and this is why we strongly support the integration of the Jedi Council within Union, and why we freely share advanced military technologies with the Jedis."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"Of course, powerful individuals do create special events, but it was still quite a shock for us that time to discover that a single individual created such a slaughter for his personal pleasure.

That being said, what are 'strong' people in your culture? As you said the strong must rule, while we believe the... sagacious, are most suitable to rule." The senator needed a second to find the correct word and it was like he was still unsure he had the correct one chosen.

"Clearly the one with the biggest axe would be a poor choice in time of peace. Soldiers are generally quite strong, but are poor in running an economy. But teprogrena don't have as much time to learn and live as hemet veolians, so how does this work with your culture, your imperial majesty?"

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"You are absolutely correct that having a big axe does not make you strong."

The empress took another sip.

"You should interpret strength not as a physical quality, but as a quality indicative of one's willed influence on the world. Being strong of mind, or sagacious as you so eloquently put it, is certainly a part of this. Being capable of holding territory through strategic and tactical manoeuvring of armies or political favours is a good indication of strength of mind.

In short, a strong individual is capable of affecting the world through force of will and effort. Those that spend little effort to effect great change are stronger than those that must do more effort. And those that become hemet are without exception stronger than those without.

For starters, when someone becomes hemet, his muscle power roughly triples, his fine motor control improves significantly, he can maintain physical exertion for days on end, and falling from ten stories down will most likely only break one or two ribs and bruise him. A hemet is capable of consciously regulating any process within his body, even those that are normally autonomic such as heartbeat or the release of adrenaline.

Furthermore, any hemet is capable of separating parts of his mind and set those parts to parallel tasks, each part easily as capable as a normal veolian. This allows hemets to formulate theories and plans, to conceptualize complete design schematics and to process amounts of information that stagger a normal mind. Next to this, hemets are sensitive to the force, and can, with training, learn to control the elements, influence the minds of weaker creatures and operate veolian hyperdrives. But even without training, hemet veolians instinctively pick up on the ebb and flow of the force.

All these things combined ensure that hemet veolians are stronger than their non-hemet cousins, even if relatively young."

The empress gauged the reaction of the teprogrena before her.

"And then there is, as you mentioned, the longevity of hemet veolians. When compared to non-hemets, we literally have lifetimes to practice and hone our arts. During this time, we practice what we know, we learn new things, we pick up hobbies, and through this gain experience on the ways of the universe.

Asking us to leave the rule of Veolia to a non-hemet is akin to asking you to leave the governing of your world to a three-year old toddler. We care deeply for our non-hemet cousins, and while they might make it on their own, we have a duty to protect them, and to help them be all that they can be."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"But then," the senator hooked in on the explanation of the empress, "you must have the feeling that the Union is also controlled by little children. And yet, last chancellor election your faction did not try or reached for chancellorship."

The senator took a sip from his tea, buying him a little time to think how he could state in a delicate way what he wanted to say next, as his intention was absolutely not to insult the empress.

"So apparently inside you have the trust that the races who do not have many lifetimes to learn and grow are still capable of ruling.

Please don't take this wrong, your imperial empress," he added, knowing in how many ways the empress could interpret this in bad ways, "it gives us, of the Consensus, great reassurance that the Veolian Commonwealth takes us, the Union, and themselves serious and entrust the leadership of the Union to a democracy.

[Empress Saret Neferti]

The empress seemed unfazed by Tassar's conclusion.

"The Union is controlled by children.", the empress replied after taking a sip.

"One has but to look at the last few recorded senate meetings: Meaningless squabbles over irrelevant cultural differences, senators with regular emotional outbursts, hollow arguments thinly veil criticism on the culture of one's peers, a lack of adherence to protocol and timeliness, and a mediocre command of Galactic Basic.

Our people were shocked when they learned of this, and my husband had to issue an Imperial decree purely to settle the matter. There have been voices in the council advising my husband that we will be better off if we repay the Union grant, and take our leave. But we still believe in the vision of the Union, and we hope to see the day on which the children grow up."

The empress took another sip, and motioned for the twi'lek woman to sit somewhere close to the empress.

"Democracy is not a foreign concept to us, as can be seen from the Imperial Council. And with the myriad of cultures, democracy seems to be a good way to maintain communication and cooperation between Union members. But we will strongly object to any proposal that limits the sovereignty of any Union member, as we do not see democracy as anything more than a good tool to cooperation.

We have not yet tried for chancellorship because we feel that it would be in the best interests of the Union if a chancellor is acquainted with the details and intricacies of the Union. We have only been members for little over a year, it is not our place to take up such responsibility yet. For now, we are content to have a seat in the cabinet and to learn more about the Union."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"Personally I have a hard time to believe the 'children' in the senate will ever grow up. Not because I have no confidence in their mental growth, but because the cultural differences are too big. This difference alone makes communication in basic galactic already quite a challenge sometimes.

Our faction has dozens of words for 'we', to indicate the type and size of the group this 'we' indicates. But basic galactic has only one word for this. Also as another example: I had to learn the whole concept of 'honour' during my lessons of basic galactic, as this phenomena is quite unfamiliar within our faction. We also debate very directly and with hard words. And when you translate these words directly, the meaning changes during debate or a social talk.

The only way I see the Union will truly grow up is by creating the same culture within every faction. But we, of the Consensus, are not prepared to let our consensus go. But at the same time offers this system only little room for personal power, the key to the vast majority of other government systems."

While the senator drank from his tea, his wife elaborated: "We believe these kind of government systems are responsible for most of the troubles. A government based on personal power mostly attracts the power hungry. But these people have the tendency to only care about themselves and are not always the best rulers. As long as his kind of people have the opportunity to rule, it will be very hard to form a stable Union without petty infighting."

Mirabi did put her drinking cord in a straw near the back of her jaw to take some tea.

[Empress Saret Neferti]

The empress listened closely to the words of Tassar.

"I do not think that a single all-encompassing culture will prove to be the solution. If anything, this will weaken the Union is all its members would think the same way, and look at an issue from the same angle. For all to become one is a step down the path of extinction. Instead, we should focus on a deeper understanding of each other's culture.", she replied.

Then she waited and took a sip of tea herself, while Mirabi continued the elaboration.

"I must say that while I admire the frankness of your words, I do not like what you are implying. The Veolian Commonwealth is built on those with great personal power, but we realize that such power comes with responsibilities to those weaker than us.

Besides, I have no issue with petty infighting. I just ask that such infighting be done in a civilized manner, with adherence to the laws and protocols set forth by one's peers. Such petty infighting can even be seen as the life-blood of politics, as it brings to light the larger issues before they grow to unwieldy proportions that might tear the Union apart. From such differences comes strength."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"I never meant any disrespect to you and your government, your imperial highness," said the senator confident, "as you said yourself, hemet veolians live for millennia and have the time to learn. However other species do not have this many years and the result sometimes comes close to a popularity contest at the school.

To take senator Afra Mesti Vanlind as an example, she clearly lacks the necessary skills and knowledge to rule, but was still able to become senator, apparently to their government system which is based on personal power."

Tassar took some time to enjoy his delicious tea before he continued: "I think the core of the problem is, every generation must again achieve this deeper understanding of the other cultures. The Union can be stable for one generation, but fall the next when the that generation refuses to listen and respect each other, everything is then lost again.

In a certain point of view, it doesn't matter, you are dead so why should you care, but at the other side, I think I can fairly assume every space travelling species cares for their young and wants the best for them, and thus every generation wants to do the best they can to leave a good future for their children. One way or another. The biggest problem then is probably when a faction wants to leave the best future for their children in another way, which collide with the paths of other factions."

The face of the senator looked pensive for a moment. "Now I think of it, it must be quite different for hemet veolians how they see their children as for us, nearly all other species. Teprogrena grow old and leave their children in the world. But your children grow old, while you barely change, and when you bear a hemet, parent and child will likely grow old together. I can imagine how this changes the view of the veolian nobility on children."

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"You are right, children do grow old with their parents. Even though after a certain amount of time, the child is not seen as such any more, but as an equal. Most nobility personally knows their great-great-grandparents, and meeting one's great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is not seen as something of great importance. Unfortunately, galactic basic is very unsuited for discussing such familial relations...", the empress replied.

"Of course, every parent will have a certain fondness for their child, but this becomes less over time, as the child finds its own way in the world. And things become more complicated when the child is not hemet...", the empress paused a moment, "seeing your child grow old and die of old age. I have been told it does something to a parent."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"I can say it does," said Mirabi, "a friend of mine lost her child, she was devastated. Although hemet veolian can see their children have a good life and die of old age, loosing a child is still one of the worst things what can happen to a parent. I can imagine that this is the same for hemet veolian, only I imagine they will be sad instead of devastated."

While she took some tea, Tassar hooked up with the story his wife was telling: "Since we have cybernetic implants, the amount of parents loosing their children has dropped significantly. I don't know if your imperial majesty has heard of Fecta Trigiel, the padawan in the jedi order from our faction. But he had an accident in the past which would render most people dead. We could revive him and now he is doing missions for the Jedi." The senator paused for a moment, this was the topic he wanted to talk about, his main reason to speak with the empress, besides the formal courtesies to keep good relations with allies.

"A while ago, one of your military trainings went wrong, where at least 20 people died. When I hear this kind of news, I always wonder what the factions medical capabilities are. We, of the Consensus, can nothing but assume the involved factions always do their best they can to save the people. But we often have the feeling cybernetica can do a lot of good in such tragedies.

After which I have ask: The Veolian Commonwealth is not a great fan of cybernetics, I believe, but do you apply cybernetics to save people, like this kind of accidents?"

[Empress Saret Neferti]

"I have seen a mention of the name Fecta Trigiel in a report, but I had not connected it to a significant person. I shall make it a point to know more about him.", the veolian empress commented.

"I know the incident to which you refer. But the way you refer to 'our military' does not apply here. You might be interested to know that military of the Veolian Commonwealth is comprised of the Imperial Legions and the militaries of each of the great Houses. This training was a effort of House Shebi and House Nehket, and as such is outside of the scope of the Commonwealth military."

The empress took a sip of tea.

"Of course, my husband could deem the mission Imperially sanctioned, in which case the details will become known to us. But he has not seen fit to do so, and as such I have no more details on the incident. I can however, elaborate on our view of cybernetics and their use."

After another sip of tea, the empress continued.

"First off, we do apply cybernetics to save people. The incident you referred to, of the roughly 400 heavy casualties, around 350 have already recovered by now. The lost limbs and organs largely restored through cybernetic prosthetics and implants.

However, such advanced measures should be taken to safe lives, and to restore their bodily functions. We firmly believe that such technologies should not be applied frivolously to gain abilities beyond one's evolutionary station. By having abilities beyond one's genetic predisposition an individual becomes a more desirable mate, which, in the end, will impede the evolution of a species.

This is why, though we do see the benefits of augmenting cybernetics, anyone with augmenting cybernetics is required, by law, to be sterile. A rare few individuals choose to augment their abilities beyond the natural, knowingly excluding themselves from the cycle of procreation to contribute to the continued survival of their bloodline, the commonwealth and the veolian species.

So, while we are very interested in advanced cybernetics and its applications, our focus is in the restorative cybernetics, and less on augmenting cybernetics."

[Senator Danar Tassar]

"I am very interested in to what level you have managed to uplift the restorative cybernetics. For example, at the Teprogrenaian Consensus we can save teprogrena who are burned to the bone. Basically all there has to be preserved is the brain, the rest we can do. Al did experience turned out that having lungs an a heart as well make the lifespan incredible longer because of the natural link between the brain and rest of the body, with an excellent tuned system for air supply with it.

It appeared even that an individual with so few original body, and so much cybernetics is still able to wield the force. Padawan Fecta Trigiel is the living proof. Something I can imagine will be interesting for your faction, Your Imperial Majesty."