[snip]

”..I see, Captain Glen, most interesting. If I can be quite honest, from those other species we have met or encountered, none even who are in a collective union like you describe seem as coherently meshed together, there always seem one or two areas that cause conflict as we later find out. So I suppose my next question to you is has your Federation ever had a sort of internal civil war or civil strife? I mean if you do not mind answering that I mean.” Dol asked.

“No civil war, no!” replied Glen, “I’m not saying that such a thing is impossible, of course. However, the four founding races that formed the Federation each had their own destructive planetary strife before they decided to come together in peace. Earth had their World War Three, which came close to total annihilation, while Vulcan had their Time of Awakening. I guess that they wanted an alternative to an apocalyptic future and tried hard to avoid it ever happening again.”

“Nor can I tell you that there are never any arguments or disagreements. When the Federation was about to sign a historic peace treaty with it’s greatest enemy, the Klingon Empire, there were conspirators of both sides who almost plunged them instead into full scale war. The conspiracy was thwarted and the Khitomer Accords were duly signed, but as you say there are always one or two areas where people cannot agree and where conflict is a possibility.” Glen gave as full an answer as he could.

Glen added, “Of course, another great Federation Captain once put it quite differently, and much more honestly to a new race who were considering joining the Federation, when he said, ‘Why would you want to turn our enemies into your enemies? We’re just a few years clear of the Klingon War. The Romulans are out there biding their time. Who knows what species we’ll piss off next? And it’s not like we’ve coming to you with any great respect for your culture. We barely know anything about it. Now, it’s pretty clear we’re only interested in you for your territory. And what would you get in return? The hypothetical benefit of new trade markets? Scientific advancement? Our promise of support in the event of a crisis which will probably only come about because you’ve thrown your lot in with us?’ He went on to say, “The Federation has lots to offer, sure, but it always exacts a price.” It is entirely up to members to decide if that price is too high for them to pay. Most do decide that the benefits of membership out way the liabilities and obligations imposed. Some, like the Alstaireans, decide it isn’t for them at the present time. No pressure is applied, if that was a concern of yours.”

Dol nodded again seeming to ponder this turn of information, “..I see Captain Glen. Well I feel for now that satisfies my own curiosity about your Federation. Is there anything else you might wish to know about this habitat or my people?” he inquired. “..If not I thought you may like to see how we oversee the habitat’s operation from our main control center?”

“We’d like to see that,” said Glen, however Glen was still puzzled by the Dol’s lack of questions about sharing technology. This was a society seemingly created wholly upon shared technology from more advanced cultures that wasn’t interested in sharing new technology. Their whole area of concern aboard the Merrimack before they left had been that these people would steal their technology, but now they were here the Dol wasn’t bothered at all. “I’m still interested in learning more about your ‘seed pods’ . If you were given them in an exchange of technology, were you also given the technology or understanding to manufacture more of them? I know I said earlier that, if you agreed, then second and third contact teams, and trained diplomats would come to discuss exchanges with you, but to be perfectly honest with you, the ‘seed pods’ are at the limit of our own technology. This is why I’m curious about them. Since our starships became faster, we never needed to develop ‘sleeper ships’ further, and our advances in technology in that area stalled. However, we do know that much older, now extinct races, did use such things, as such artefacts have been found.”

-Glen

”..The Seed Pods were originally a variation on the original sleeper pods we used when we fled our old slave masters in overthrowing them long years ago and our ancestors sought a home like this of our own. In time from other trades we made we refined the Pods to their current use that have remained unchanged for the past roughly 40 local years.” Dol explained as he led Glen and Tia to a nearby tram station. Once aboard and their request given to where to go and the tram began to rise and move Dol continued, “..To explain about whether we can construct more, yes we can. The process and materials needed are fairly easy to mine, trade for or reproduce here on the habitat in our manufacturing areas. The refinements we made over the generations here kept pace with our ability to manufacture more. The only thing that is a bit mmm....I guess ‘somewhat of a strain’ for us to produce are the organic samples and emergency energy balls you found. The process of manufacturing the organic parts to be compatible with such a wide variety of environments and systems and being able to be used for energy production does put a limit on how many we can produce for each pod. Usually we provide 30-50 some samples for most pods as production and storage here on the habitat..” He said.

As he finished, El would recall that in the pod they had found on the Alstarian sleeper ship there had been about 38 such balls in total, so again this fit with what Dol was saying. As he finished the tram car arrived at another station having gone up on a rising platform several habitat decks. Exiting the tram into the station Dol led them down a short passage and through a pair of sliding glass doors. This led onto a large square shaped room that was a match for the command center they had seen Dol had been on when they first talked on the comm channels. “..Here is our primary command center, we have three other such centers scattered around the habitat along its central axis. This one is multi-purpose for our habitat, the others are supplementary in use for a specific purpose usually. Such as local security, engineering, or scientific/cultural management. But in an emergency each can be used to take over full command of the habitat if needed..” Dol said gesturing for them to look around the room.

The left area they entered from seemed devoted to various engineering and mechanical related tasks and control. Along the far right side seemed related to power control and life support management. The rear area of the center seemed devoted mostly to security and what limited defensives the habitat had. The front was split in the middle by a rectangular shaped window which showed the Merrimack in orbit nearby, but also seemed to double with a primitive holoprojection system for comm traffic. To left and right of the screen seemed a group of consoles devoted to simple library storage, computer control, and such. In the middle of the room were a couple of sitting stations likely home to the head councilor’s and advisors to use to help Dol out. “..Please take a look around, let me or my staff know if you have any questions..” he said. Said staff looked up from their stations at various points to give curious looks to their visitors a few giving polite nods and such before adjusting their tin foil like pointed hats then returning to their station work.

GM CockRoach