There is one other spaceship, not quite geostationary but making a pretty leisurely tour of the space over the larger of the two continents on the planet in question.

The other starship is hailed.

It does not respond to this in any way.

Huh.

Anyone on the planet want to respond to hails?

Still no!

Strange! 

They'll take a moment to scan the ship for any life signs, and the planet for any radio or television. 

The ship has plant life and unicellular organisms aboard.

Planet has only a tiny, tiny bit of radio; maybe they invented it last week?

This planet has a very confusing amount of development. That ship is actually really sophisticated!

Well, they can use the default low tech first contact protocol for now, and ask about the ship later.

Major population centers/obvious seats of government? 

There are some cities - for a low-density value of "cities". The biggest ones are all on the eastern of the two big rivers that cross the continent roughly north-to-south. There's one at the estuary where the buildings are practically all blue.

Blue city seems most likely to be a seat of government given it's uniqueness...

The handbook says that the standard procedure for low tech first contact is to land your entire ship on the planet, if that's doable, to make more obvious that you are from a high tech civ - speeding up what is typically a month or two process of giving the planet all the useful tech info, advice, and a basic resources boost (as well as marking them for future supply drop offs). 

However, this planet has a giant fairly high tech spaceship nearby, which indicates that they could be important allies (or dangerous enemies). 

Lucien (captain of Starship Bridget) does not like deviating from what the handbook says this early on in a mission. Especially considering that he wrote most of the handbook when he was feeling anxious about having to make lots of decisions as a captain and wanted to have clear pro-cedures written down about what he was gonna do! And then, instead of just being there and relaxing for him, President Sierra read it and promoted him and gave him a job where he had to go out and be away from the main fleet! ... he's actually sort of happy about that since the main fleet is fighting a lot and helping people is nicer and he does feel like he is being more useful in this role but. It's still really stressful.

Anyways, he's going to take a shuttle down to the surface (which is what you do for a high tech civ) along with his chief of security and a science officer.

The blue city has open-air markets and the high proportion of surrounding farmland that suggests they're pretty low tech and some lively low tech ports. It has a pretty clock - mechanical - and tiles in the main square in various blues and the buildings are almost all made of the same blue stone, apparently from that quarry over there if he's looking.

People do not seem to be expecting a shuttle to land and there's some scurrying around and panicking. Everybody on the surface looks like a human, except by the time he lands, someone has scared up an angel, watching him descend from the roof of a building, ready to take off if that looks like it might help at all with anything.

Lucien and co-exit the shuttle. Universal translation (with Cryptophasia helping) is working. He addresses the angel:

"Hello! I'm Captain Lucien of the Starship Bridget of the Amalien Alliance. I'm looking for a representative of this planet."

"I'm the angel Nehemiah," says the angel. "The Archangel Linus rules out of Monteverde."

"Would it be possible for you to show us where that is on a map?"

(He inwardly smiles at successfully pro-nouncing possible without any pauses. It's a hard one for amaliens.)

"...yes, I could."

A data pad with a map of the globe can be provided if the angel doesn't have one handy.

The angel is pretty confused by the picture, since they don't have cameras, but the angel can also fly and knows what Monteverde looks like from the air. It's on pretty much the other end of the landmass.

"Thank you! I hope this is the start of something great!"

Lucien can't really think of anything else to say - Sierra probably would but he's not her, so he sorta awkwardly leaves at this point.

A little less than an hour later the shuttle lands at  Monteverde.

That's not enough time for word to have gotten to Monteverde by more conventional channels.

Monteverde is up a mountain; he can land there, but only by taking up space that is clearly intended for angels to take off and land.

The shuttle circles looking for nicer spots to land nearby the city - it's okay if they need to walk fifteen minutes or something. Other-wise he has the shuttle drop them off at the angel landing spot and leave so as not to get in the way. 

Monteverde isn't really a city, it's more like a cave system dug into the rock, but there's a terraced path people can use to walk up from the villages in the foothills. It'd take more than fifteen minutes though.

Angel landing spot it is!

The shuttle comes to a stop for just enough time for Lucien and his chief of security to hop out, and then takes off to circle the broader area at a high altitude, waiting for them to request pickup later.

This causes an incoming angel to need to flap a bit to get enough altitude to try again, and delays an outgoing angel, who maybe decides not to go out after all, blinking dumbfounded at Lucien and his security chief.

Whoops, his pilot thought that that angel was patrolling(?) the perimeter like some of the other angels looked like they were doing. ... not a good way to make a introduction.

"Uh, sorry for that landing timing."

"Um."

"I'm Captain Lucien of the Starship Bridge of the Amalien Alliance. I'm looking for a representative of this planet and was directed here by -" glance at data pad "- Nehemi-ah who we met when we first landed."

"Should I... get the Archangel for you?" asks the dumbfounded angel.

"Yes, that would be good."

The angel disappears into the cave mouth.

Lucien does his best to get off the landing pad without going inside uninvited.

There's a few nooks that are not obviously part of anybody's runway.

The angel comes back with another angel. "Who are you and why have you come here?" the other angel - presumably the Archangel Linus - asks severely.

"I am Captain Lucien of the Starship Bridget, this is Chief of Security Kurm."

"We are here to provide help and aid as best we can, to discover new allies, and to promote the flourishing of all as far as we are able."

"You've arrived uninvited."

"We did our best to find a way of contacting you from our ship, but the ship orbiting this planet wasn't responding and we couldn't figure out a way to contact you here without coming in person."

"There are other visitors?"

"There's an empty ship near your planet, but I was assuming it had been here for awhile? We didn't notice any warp signatures while scouting at least."

And they were keeping an eye out for those so they could avoid any Federation ships.

"I'm afraid I don't quite know what you're talking about. Would you like to come inside to talk?"

"Yes, inside would be good."

"You aren't aware of ship that's orbiting your planet? At least for the past month I think."

"Do you mean the moon?"

"No?"

He types somethings on his datapad, bringing up Starship Bridget's sensors and navigating to a view of the other ship. 

"Looks like this from space, though I suppose you might not recognize it from this angle."

"I don't recognize it. Is this what you came to discuss?"

"Not only that. We came to offer our technology and aid as well."

"I'd like to consult with the oracles on this subject. Can I offer you a guest room?"

"That would work, do you know how long the con-sultation might take?"

"It may be a few days for a round trip. Are you in very much of a hurry?"

"Not necessarily, though we do prefer to be as efficient as possible, their are a lot of people to help." and also the Amaliens need more allies for the war so they can keep helping and they need them soon. ...Lucien doesn't say that. Not yet any-ways. Prolly shouldn't wait too much longer to talk about the war other-wise it'll be like they are mis-leading them instead of just pri-oritizing helping and being friendly before seeing if any-one knows how the ship was built and... probably if the amaliens can have it. Assuming no one else is using it.

"We could prob'lly fly you there faster in our shuttle if you'd like? It's only a few hour trip anywhere on your planet."

"I don't believe we're in need of any help. And no thank you. Jovah gave us wings of our own."

Lucien can stay with his chief of security in the guest room in that case. It'll give him a chance to get to know what this planet's like.

The guest room has a twelve-foot-wide bed with a headboard that has enough room on top of it to serve as a nightstand, a fireplace, a window, a basin of water with some washcloths, and an armoire. It's carved straight into the mountain, smooth stone floors and rough stone ceiling.

This definitely matches what Lucien would expect from a place without much radio at all! He doesn't really have that much to unpack and it's not that late so he goes to see if anyone would be okay giving him a tour of the wider building.

There's a human servant accompanying them to the room if they need anything, though she wasn't expecting to be asked for a tour. "The - whole building? Most of it is just living quarters..."

"Ah. I was hoping for an introduction to what life is like here - the building was just the obvious can-did-ate. Is there a better place for me tour?"

"Um. If that's okay, of course."

"There's... the music rooms?"

"I'd be happy to see those, if it's okay."

The servant shows him to an array of soundproof music practice rooms. Each has a little stereo inside of it.

"Who practices here?"

"Well, whoever wants to."

"Do you?"

"Oh, I'm not much of a singer, but if I were practicing for something I would."

"What sort of things do people practice for?"

"There are plenty of little concerts all year round, and of course there's the Gloria once annually."

"The Gloria?"

"A huge festival on the Plain of Sharon. All the angels are always there."

"Is it mostly a music festival?"

"Yes."

Lucien is getting the feeling the guide isn't very interested in giving this tour, so he'll retire back to the room.  Hope-fully these aliens will be easier to get to know once they've talked to the oracle.

He'll work on his datapad in the meantime, mostly on figurin' out how to improve crop yields for the planet since that's usually an important one for a civilization that's not very ad-vanced. He can access his ship's scans of the planet from here.

The planet has pretty wacky native weather patterns, but almost none of that is evidenced in the behavior of the crops; they must be experts at getting things to grow despite all the drought and flood and wind and temperature swings that this planet ought to be throwing at them all the time.

That is pretty impressive! And another bit of confusing technology level.

He's a little disappointed, he likes helping with agriculture. Maybe he can work on planning better transpor-tation infrastructure?

They seem to have barely invented the steam engine (and have it attached to individual cars, not trains) and it's not popular yet. There are lots of horses, lots of dirt roads, they have no trains. There are of course angels, who can maybe cross the whole continent in a day if they want.

He gets to design trains for them! He sets to work figuring out what places people seem to be travelling between and how introducing trains will effect which places people travel to and how to avoid too much disruption. It's a fun task. ...which he should possibly leave to others in his crew but he's good at it and has the time.

Nobody's getting back with news from the oracle in the next few hours. The servant brings lunch - bread and rabbit and cabbage.

"Um. Sorry I don't eat meat. These other foods seem nice though."

"Oh." She puts the bread on the plate with the rabbit and cabbage and scrapes the rabbit onto the bread plate and takes it away.

Lucien is more than fed by the rest of the meal. It's way better than the replicated nutrient foods they have on the ship - some of the ships have better replicators but his doesn't have enough people to justify the cost while there's a war on.

Eventually the angel they sent to the oracle comes back and reports to the Archangel, who comes to see Lucien.

"The oracle Peninnah says that this is a grave matter and she was unable to give a complete response from the god and still have the messenger back tonight," says Linus. "I'm sending out more angels, two to each oracle in Samaria, so that one can turn back with quick answers and another stay for long ones, but I do not know when we'll have Jovah's wisdom ready to guide us. In the meantime, perhaps you could tell me more about what you want and who you are."

"I represent the Amalien Alliance, an interstellar alliance of planets, committed to the advancement, flourishing, and protection of all life."

"We search for new civilizations and provide them with the technology and resources to prosper and defend themselves. We have technologies that can eradicate hunger and disease, and allow travel to other stars. However we can, we want to help."

Lucien takes a deep breath. This next part is the scary part.

"We also come with a warning... the galaxy is not safe."

"The Borg, a mega-civilization far exceeding the size of any other we know of, forcibly assimilates any biologically life forms they encounter, killing them and using their bodies as ... puppets."

"If the status quo doesn't change, they will swarm over this region of space, within two centuries at the absolute latest, and kill every lifeform - on our planets and on yours. They do not care whether someone has attacked them before, they make this clear, telling any who they encounter that they do not negotiate, they only assimilate."

Lucien shudders after saying this.

"It is our hope that you would ally yourself with us in this war - the starship orbiting your planet might par-ticularly be a useful, it has weapon system we haven't seen before."

"As I've said, we didn't know there to be any such thing.

"Our ancestors came to Samaria fleeing war and sought at great price to be free of it, and see their descendants free of it. We cannot lightly and on the word of strangers enter a new era of warfare."

"That's extremely reasonable and responsible - I'd be a bit worried if you did lightly go to war."

"We hope to be able to give you the tools and information that you can verify for yourself the threat we all face."

Lucien pauses for a bit.

"Also if no one actually claims ownership or control of the ship, we could attempt to acquire it ourselves. But I'd really rather not rush into that for fear of upsetting someone. We'll prob-ably want to search for anyone who claims the ship is there's for a bit longer before doing anything like that."

"My fliers visiting the oracles will surely bring it up. Perhaps with some lengthier attempts they'll be able to divine Jovah's will in the matter."

The amaliens have encountered quite a few religious societies at this point, and they have learned a few major things:

1) Don't assume there must be substantial truth to their religious beliefs, no matter how much people may believe it.

2) Don't dismiss them - religions often have very important societal functions.

3) Don't try to make a three hour long presentation in which you prove thoroughly using twelve different disciplines, four experiments, and a novel combination of anthropics and simulation theory, that a religion must be less than 3% likely to be true.

4) No Vira, that clever exception to lesson number three doesn't count.

5) If you crash on a planet and are very obviously immune to death, you might start a religion on accident. Don't do this.

These lessons aren't really very helpful in the end - dealing with religions is complicated and the Federation doesn't have policies they can copy on account of how warp capable civilizations are usually pretty secular.

So, Lucien is going to have figure this out himself....

Hopefully asking questions isn't a bad thing here, he really would like to understand what's going on.

"How does that work exactly?" he asks.

"The god hears all our prayers, of course, but some better than others, and the oracles are privileged to receive his replies."

"Ah."

Where does he go from there.

"And. You listen to the replies the oracles get?"

"Yes. I don't need to consult them for every day to day thing, but this isn't one."

"Of course."

So... Probably oracles are the real power here?

"Will they need to talk to me?"

"I don't know. It's possible."

"How are oracles chosen?"

"Oh um. I should clarify - my home planet didn't have oracles or talking to Jovah, though some other planets have things that sound similar. We've had some mis-under-standings before about the sim-ilar things so I'm tryin' to be extra careful and might be confused about some things that seem obvious to you."

"I've heard the Edori hold that every star in the sky has its own god and Jovah is only one of these."

Hm... pro'bally good to not underplay di-versity of beliefs. Would be sorta dis-honest and also make confusion later more lik-ely. Better to say things now than wait for things to be found out later.

"There's a lot of different things people believe about gods, which can make getting a-long hard some-times. Some planets have their own gods, some have a bunch of gods for just the one planet, some get very angry if anyone else says they have a different god then theirs. Um. One of the most co-mmon beliefs a-mong the people in the Amalien Alliance is ac-tually that most gods are just so-cial phe-nomena and not as li-teral as places of-ten think they are."

He smiles nervously.

"I'm saying this this all now so it won't come as a surprise and cause um. Sometimes people just assume that other people have the same important beliefs they do when they first meet, and then later get angry when they find out this isn't true and feel misled." 

"We want the best for people no matter what they believe about these things."

Linus smiles gently. "Perhaps all those other gods aren't as good to their people as ours and have lost their love. At any rate, heresy is not illegal and people can say whatever outlandish things they please so long as they are aware that we're devoted to Jovah and our prayers will go to him."

"I'm... happy to hear that you're so understanding..."

"I think you might be the first place I've heard of that consults with religious authorities on important decisions but doesn't criminalize heresy." It's honestly very re-freshing. 

"- how curious. I'm not sure why that would be, but perhaps it's not pertinent. Would you like to come to a meeting room?"

Yes, he would like to go to a meeting room!

(He is actually pretty happy about getting invited to a meeting room, but he doesn't let it show too much.)

In they go. In addition to Linus the meeting room contains a human woman, an older human man, and the servant from earlier who is putting out snack trays and pouring glasses of water.

"So. Formal introductions. I'm the Archangel Linus, and this is my angelica Tabitha, and my uncle and advisor Joash. How do we address you?"

"I'm Captain Lucien, and this is my Chief of Security Kurm."

Kurm is humanoid, with skin that looks like it's covered in a thin layer of grey sentiment, as if he rubbed chalk over his entire body. Unlike Lucien he appears to be an adult.

"The rest of the crew of the Starship Bridget is orbiting your planet overhead, very high up."

"Pleased to meet you," says Tabitha. "I hope your visit to Samaria finds you well."

"Thank you. I hope we are able to help you in our time here."

He awkwardly pauses for a moment. 

... He can't think of what he should say next so maybe he will just let them speak more.

"Help us with what? Is something the matter?" asks Joash.

"That's what Captain Lucien and I were just discussing," says Linus. "Apparently this is a friendly visit, but there are unfriendlier visitors in the offing."

"The ... unfriendly visitors - the Borg - are not the only way we'd hope to help you. We also have lots of technology for things like curing the sick, enabling faster transportation, or preventing famine. Though you do seem to be good at the famine prevention bit yourself."

"But yes, we are also here because of the Borg."

He considers showing them holograms of the horrors of the Borg... probably not a good idea right now. Too much like... trying to take advantage of emotions.

"The Borg is an omnicidal mega-civilization* that searches for life in order to assimilate it - where assimilation roughly entails murdering and puppeting the corpses of their victims to turn them into more Borg. The vast majority of sentient warp-capable** civilizations we know of in this section of space are working together to defend against the borg, under an agreement known as the Pact - the most prominent such groups being the Amalien Alliance, which I represent, and the United Federation of Planets."

"This agreement first came about when the Borg discovered a wormhole*** to this portion of the galaxy and poured through. A lot of planets were lost - over 75 billion people. We've managed to keep them from spreading, and are working to expel them and close the wormhole. We think we've stopped their invasion through the wormhole. We hope that they won't find another one - if they do it's likely they'll overwhelm the immediate area before we will be able to stop them."

"But. Even if all of that goes fine. The Borg don't need a wormhole to get here. They're on the other side of the galaxy, but we're pretty confident that they're moving towards us, via warp drive rather than wormhole. If they sent a fleet towards us when they first made contact they could possible be here in as few as 50 years if they went full speed. We think they're probably taking their time, assimilating anyone thye find on the way to us. Our best guess is they will be here in 110 years. At the most, 200."

"We need to be able to stop them by the time they get here. And ... we don't have a good a idea about how to do it."

"Part of the mission of the Amalien Alliance is to find civilizations like yours, and give them warning and aid. So even if the Borg do find a wormhole, maybe you will be able to flee or stand your ground until help comes. And maybe you'll help find a way to stop them completely."

"I ... don't want to come across as if I'm trying to scare you. I tried not to high-light the scariest bits, cause I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to use 'motions to get you to make a really really important decision."

*mega-civilization translates as "something larger than an individual civilization typically is". The three known mega-civilizations are: the Amalien Alliance, the Federation, and the Borg.

**warp-capable translates as "able to travel between stars quickly" 

*** translates as "shortcut through space"

The locals exchange looks.

"If what you say is true this will certainly be the most pressing issue in our grandchildren's time," says Linus.

"Um. Unless the Borg find another wormhole. That could be sooner."

He represses the instinct to apologize for seeming scary. 

He remembers the pictures he saw of the barely pre-warp Ment the Amaliens had found a few dozen lightyears from the wormhole. Just three Amalien ships had tried to hold out long enough for larger ships to come and evacuate people. Lucien had studied videos of the Amaliens trying to convince the leaders of the planet, and later the populace, to drop everything and prepare to buy time and then to evacuate. He'd seen as the videos of the panic and chaos in the Ment's legislature as the first Borg vessel landed, in the middle of a last plea by Captain Eema. 

The only surviving Ment were those few who had fit onto the single Amalien scouting ship lucky enough to survive. 

(He doesn't cry in front of the Samarians - it hadn't helped Captain Eema when she cried.)

"Of course, while you know that you're telling the truth, we don't, not yet," says Joash. "If you could be a little clearer about what you want us to do, other than being frightened..."

"We want to figure out what is going on with the very advanced ship with weapons that might actually be useful against the Borg that is orbiting your planet."

"We'd also like to help you advanced tech-nologically so you can build your own starships and defenses in case the Borg attack here."

"Is the other... ship... not a visitor like yourself?" asks Tabitha.

"Our ancestors renounced their technology and I've had no reason to suppose they erred in so doing," says Linus.

"The other ship seems to have been here longer, and appears to be uncrewed. We'll probably start inv-estigaitng soon to find out more. So far we've stuck with being pretty passive so as not to upset anyone who controls it."

"I'm not sure what you mean about how they didn't err? Could you say more words about that?"

"- well, they set down their weapons and their other - gadgetry - and since then we've lived here peacefully without the conflict that ravaged their lives," says Linus. "We don't war, here. Jovah's very clear about that in the Librera."

"War is extremely bad! We agree on this."

Lucien frowns.

"My people, the amaliens, never had wars before we met other species. Not that we know of. We were pretty happy all things con-sidered."

"Our first war we chose cause we cared about protecting other people and didn't know how to do it without fighting."

"This is our second war. This one we didn't choose - the Borg don't give people a choice. They come, they kill, and then they use the people they killed to go and kill others and continue their war."

"I don't see why they'd bother with us," says Tabitha. "There aren't billions of us, what a number, why would they bother?"

"They don't seem to care about how many people there are all that much. They have swarms of smaller crafts that they'll send out to find planets that are easy targets and assimilate them. Planets that resist will be targeted by larger and larger fleets until they are assimilated, or the Borg are beaten back."

He checks on his data pad.

"They assimilated a colony of 25,000 people. We don't know much about whether they've assimilated worlds that didn't have much tech and had very few people - my guess is there wouldn't be enough evidence left over for us to tell. Some of the Borg we've killed had bodies that plausible came from pre-agricultural societies."

"And yet, having only your word to go on," says Joash, "I don't think it can be reasonable for us to take any drastic action."

"We'll see what Jovah has to say," says Linus.

"Of course."

"I ... don't want to press but later, if you'd like, we can share our records about the Borg, or take representatives to see things in person."

"Those seem like reasonable steps to establish the situation," says Linus.

"Why are you bothering with us? We can't be that useful to your side of the matter either," says Tabitha.

"We try to help people. It's what the Amalien Alliance is for. Fighting the war is rel-ated but it's not the most important thing all on it's own. The helping people is."

"Mostly when we find a planet like yours we spend our time giving them technology to stop hunger and disease and other things like those. Or help in other ways if there are other ways that we can help."

"Um. Also the spaceship might matter but that's not why I'm here right now - if only the spaceship mattered I might have left after I was told it wasn't yours."

"I don't know what that could possibly be about," says Joash, shaking his head.

Lucien doesn't know either.

"I'm hopeful we'll be able to find out."

"Is there anything else it would be productive to discuss before the fliers get back from the oracles?"

Hm...

"I'd like to get a sense of what things we might be able to help with, unrelated to the war. What sort hard-ships do most people face in their lives here?"

"I'm unclear on your motives there. If we aren't ultimately in a position to offer our help I would have expected your obvious next step to be to move on and seek out someone who will."

"No, not at all."

"The Amalien Alliance was founded with the goal of helping people. Whether or not those people help us is unrelated to that goal. We've provided food and medicine to civilizations that made it quite clear that they'd give us nothing in return."

"And why is that?"

"Because we want to help people. It's ..." Lucien gestures vaguely, trying to figure out how to put it into words.

"I don't really think there's an explanation that goes deeper than that. We know not everyone wants to help people, but we do."

He really is not the amalien to explain this. President Sierra or Captain Keeta would be better.

"I don't think that's so uncommon, but I think typically there's - some attempt to achieve something with the choice of who and how and when."

"Hm... We found your planet because we'd detected signs of technology and weapons that could prove useful against the Borg, but that isn't relevant to our offer of help now."

"Also most of the things we are offering are not very expensive to us. If you want my starship and had no special need for it than I think I'd say no - they are in short supply and desperately needed - but, teaching you how to make more advanced technology and providing certain resources is well within our capabilities."

"Well, we wouldn't know what to do with your starship. But it's what brought you here, yes? And any other help you chose to provide? Why, if they're in short supply and desperately needed, would you deploy any of them here?"

"Because otherwise we couldn't help you, that's the sort of think it's needed for."

Ships like his are not all that usable against the Borg.

Lucien pauses for a moment, taking a deep breath. He... feels like this is arguing? Which isn't a great way for a first contact to go.

"Hm. Sorry, I feel like we're getting off on the wrong foot? First contacts can be hard and cultural differences are confusing - it's possible there's something basic I'm missing here?"

"Uh. If you'd rather take a break or wait till your oracle has responded that would also be fine."

"That's fine by us," says Linus, rising from his chair.

Well, that could have gone better.

Lucien keeps to himself mostly while they wait for the oracle's return.

The oracles were not actually expected to come back in person.

One of them does anyway, though. She has wings of her own and thought it best.

A servant shows the oracle Alleluia to the guest quarters where the visitors are staying.

Lucien is on his data pad trying to figure out the minimal amount of help that Samaria needs to get trains, just in case he can't get them to accept more help.

Knock knock.

Lucien answers the door.

"Hello?"

It's an angel woman in maybe her early forties. "Hello. I am the oracle Alleluia," she says.

"Oh! Hi! I'm Lucien, Captain of Starship Bridget."

He's happy to meet an oracle! Maybe this meeting will be more pro-ductive than the previous one was.

"I would like to speak with you alone and in private. Is this agreeable?"

"Without my chief of security?"

She eyes the chief of security. "I assume you trust him implicitly."

"Definitely."

"With information and judgment as well as your personal safety?"

"Yes. He's my chief of security because I trust him to be reasonable and make good decisions even in tense delicate situations." 

"Very well." She leads them to - the music rooms, actually.

Lucien and Kurm follow.

(Lucien is a bit less tense given that Kurm can join - it narrows down the possibilities of what this could be about to be safer and less immediately dangerous.)

She picks an empty music room at random and shuts the three of them in.

"You must stop asking about the spaceship."

"Um."

Well, that's confusing!

"That's likely a thing we can do but I'd need to understand why."

"Why? The spaceship isn't bothering you, so far as I'm aware. You can just let it be."

"Well, absent a claim to possession of the spaceship we'd likely move on to exploring and attempting to establish control over it so its technology can be studied and used."

"But we want to make sure that no one is going to be upset before we do that. That's why we've been asking about it."

"You can't have it. But it would also be best if you also did not go around asking."

"Um."

This is clearly a sensitive subject.

"Backing up a bit, do you have all the context about the Borg?"

"I have what the messenger told me."

"I'm not sure what that was. Would you be okay summ-arizing what you know? Or I could go over the si-tuation from the start again."

"You are having a vast war with other offplanet powers, who are very dangerous and unlikely to overlook Samaria as too backward to bother with. You still can't have the spaceship."

Well that's a decent summary at least.

"... can I ask why?"

"Not just to satisfy your curiosity."

Frustrating.

"Are you claiming ownership of the ship?"

"Are you just curious?"

"No."

Lucien puts his thoughts in order and sighs.

"The available evidence indicates that there might be weapons onboard thee ship that could be really important in the war against the Borg - plausibly saving billions of lives by making a critical difference in a battle to defend even one planet. It's really not clear what sort of decision we should make if it's just you asking us to leave it alone without any clear reason."

"It doesn't belong to you. The ship's details are extremely sensitive, and we have only your word to go on about the stakes, to say nothing of whether we have any obligations to any of those people."

"Do you know owns the ship?"

"Not you."

...

"I'm really not sure what sort of decision we'll end up making if this is an you tell us. I'd consult with Leadership, tell them that my best guess is the oracles claim it but that it's unclear how much effective control they have, or whether their control is in the best interest of the inhabitants of Samaria."

"I'd suggest that active boarding of the ship to investigate or taking control ourselves would be a clearly aggressive action likely to spark resistance should resistance be feasible by the Samarians. But that this isn't certain and the current evidence suggests it has technology relevant to the war with the Borg."

"Um, I don't want to sound mean about this but that's probably what I'd report. I'd like to avoid this since it seems likely to result in contentious future interactions."

"My expectation," says Alleluia, "is that if you attempt to take the ship, you'll get yourselves killed. I don't know that it's in the interests of Samaria to tell you more than that about exactly why and under exactly what theory of property you shouldn't steal the ship. I'm telling you it's not yours and you may not have it and it will not go well if you try it."

He's sort of skeptical they'd get killed taking the ship - it's very hard to destroy amaliens and they have a lot of diff-erent tools.

He takes a deep breath. This is not at all an easy mission.

"Is there anything the Amalien Alliance can provide of equivalent value to you as the ship?"

"I am not offering to sell it to you for any price."

This isn't very productive...

"Um. Aside from anything in-volving the ship are there problems we can help you with. Our help is not com-tingent on any of this."

"That part you can hash out with the Archangel. I'm only here because you need to leave the ship alone."

"We'll take it under consideration, but I can't truthfully give you any guarantees under these circumstances."

"Um. Evidence that you do represent the best wishes of the Samarians and that your authority on this sort of thing is acknowledged by others would be helpful for making the case to Leadership as to why we shouldn't int-erfere with the ship."

"You are welcome to ask Archangel Linus if he trusts me and recommends that you follow my advice."

"What, if any, context would you be okay with me providing?"

"Suppose I come with you and repeat what of this conversation I feel he should know, and then you can confirm that if he wants you to, and he can confirm that you should do as I recommend."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"Um. I also do have to say that I don't know how much we're gonna be able to obey these wishes but it's good to know and we don't want to upset you."

He can follow her to the Archangel now.

"Linus," says Alleluia, when they find him, inclining her head.

"Oracle Alleluia. I see you went straight to the visitor."

"Jovah's wisdom was too urgent and too complex to do otherwise. I believe Penninah and Emmanuel will send the same message back to you. The visitors must not interfere with the craft they found above Samaria, not for any gift nor bribery."

Linus nods solemnly.

"I hope that you'll be able to convince them. It doesn't seem that they know much about Jovah or his oracles where their people are from," Alleluia says.

"Well, I can do my best." He looks appraisingly at Lucien.

"Alleluia also said we should talk to you about plans for helping that don't involve the ... craft."

"Jovah didn't speak on that?" Linus asks, looking at her.

"All the usual cautions about warfare and weaponry, but less emphatically than the matter of the craft."

Maybe now they can actually have a discussion about how they can help the Samarians?

Even the Borg were quicker to tell the Amaliens how they could help them than the Samarians have been.

(Admittedly the request in that case had been for complete surrender to assimilation.)

"If you were hoping to - buy this thing off of us - I'm afraid we won't be able to oblige you," says Linus, sitting down on the nearest narrow-backed chair and inviting Lucien and his security to sit opposite him. "We serve Jovah here on Samaria before whatever material interests you might be able to satisfy."

"We want to help you regardless of anything involving the craft or anything you can give us."

Alleluia hovers, a little nervously, but Linus takes it from here. They could use some engineering knowhow - nothing for combat, they're not interested in doing any war, but things for building bridges or spinning fibers or things like that.

They can definitely help with that! The Amaliens can provide guides specifically on those things that will work for current Samarian tech levels from what they've seen. Also, they can probably import some machines to help with some things where only a small number of advanced machines would help on a large scale? Machines for digging tunnels through mountains are quite popular. And obviously vaccines and GMO seeds, which they have on their ship ready to go. 

Also! Here's a step-by-step tutorial to having a pleasant and successful industrial revolution - with videos and diagrams on a bunch of different things (they have tablets with the tutorial pre-loaded). The main focus is on how to climb the tech tree while being able to hit the important benefits along the way without most of the drawbacks other speeches encounter with industrializing naturally - based on the time various species have taken for different stages of the tutorial, it'll take them anywhere from 50 to 150 years to catch up to the Amalien Alliance's tech level.

"Import? Are you imagining an ongoing relationship?" Linus asks.

"I recommend against the seeds," Alleluia puts in.

"We'd be happy about an ongoing relationship, though we have limited attention compared to what we used to be able to manage and won't be able to respond to major requests - if you need any geography terraformed it'll pro-bably take awhile for us to get to helping you with that."

"Why, if I could ask?" The seeds are generally quite popular.

"The settlers brought the seeds that were right for us and for Samaria," says Alleluia, "and in times of want Jovah provides more. - For staple crops. I have no special reason to believe we are commanded to reject exotic fruit."

"Huh! Our scientists would probably enjoying seeing what your seeds are like."

They do not have any exotic fruits onboard, just staple crops. 

"Do you not have any famines here? I'd expect those to still occur occasionally at your tech level."

"No, in times of want Jovah provides," Linus says. He may be quoting something.

"Provides... Food?"

"And seeds, and rain or relief from rain," nods Linus.

"Um. If it's not rude to ask. How does that happen?"

"Well, he answers our prayers."

"I don't actually understand what that .." Lucien gestures vaguely "... actually looks like?"

"...we pray for rain, and it rains, or for sun, and it shines," says Linus. "Or for seeds, or for medicine, and they fall."

Huh. 

Ohhhhh. This ... at least partially might explain what's going on with the mystery ship. 

Lucien takes a second to think. It'd explain why the Alleluia didn't want them to do anything to the ship if the ship was necessary for basic necessities. The setup also lended itself pretty well to a stable theocracy that pretended the effects were reli-giously mediated and controlled access to the ship. Attempts to over-throw them or resist wouldn't get far. Though the weaponry the ship had might obviate the need for se-crecy if only the religious authorities had control of it? Maybe the control is tenuous and the secrecy pre-vents people from realizing they could acquire control.

He... shouldn't jump to any conclusions about this. But pro-bably he should consider this a very real poss-ibility. Gaining more evidence would be useful...

But he doesn't want to upset the Samarians even if this is what's going on - it seems pl-ausible the religious authorities might get upset if the Amaliens seemed to be sur-planting their control? It would def-initely explain what was going with rejecting the amalien seeds. Yup, this theory really does seem quite likely.

... he's been silent for weirdly long hasn't he.

"Um. I've never encountered that before."

Translation: He has no idea what he is supposed to do.

"Um. We could re-turn to the thing we were talking about before. If that's okay?"

"About the machinery? Yes, of course."

This bit is something Lucien has practiced talking about and he can do without thinking too much! Though he does keep an eye on Alleluia's reaction to the more advanced tech he mentions to see what she thinks of the Samarian people knowing how to construct it.

Alleluia's actually just going to leave after about another fifteen minutes.

Well. That's... probably fine.

Lucien will talk excitedly to the Archangel Linus for another few hours but 'ventually it gets late and he excuses himself to go back to his room for the night - they can pick things back up in the morning.

Once back at his quarters he sends an encrypted message to the his First Officer Graft onboard the Starship Bridget (who is also his chief science officer) updating him on what's happened and instructing him to review any data they have passively gathered on the Mysterious Ship, especially looking for any interactions it might have had with people on the surface of the planet. He also asks Graft to prepare plans for more intrusive scans. And... yeah, and to prepare emergency plans for disabling the ship without harming it but not to involve other officers in this (except for Chief of Security Kurm, of course) - he really doesn't want to use this sort of plan or have other officers try anything without authorization.

He also writes and sends a subspace message to Amalien Leadership, with a medium-high priority code, updating them about what's going on. Though he knows it won't reach command for three and a half days. After summarizing the context he tells command that he's likely to use intrusive scans to learn more before this message reaches them, though he does not expect to need to escalate beyond intrusive scans or to use force, excepting the possibility of under standard emergency situations. 

His recommendation to Leadership is that they prepare immediate plans for providing emergency weather proof shelter, medical care, food, and policing to Samaria so as to be prepared for the (really bad) possibility that a coup turns out to be a good idea and they have to replace essential services that are controlled by the theocratic government. His current best guess is that the people are relatively well treated by the theocracy as long as doing so doesn't threaten the oracles. But that preparing for the Borg is apparently judged to be too much of a threat to the status quo, which obviates most of the upsides of their rule - being healthy and well fed doesn't really make a difference to the Borg.

He does note some confusion as to how seriously the Oracle Alleluia took the threat of the Borg. And also he's a bit confused as to why she seemed so okay with the non-military advanced tech.

He'll send a second report once he knows more about whether he recommends a coup, and what might be needed for that.

The ship contains plant life but no animal life. It would have held hundreds of people assuming they had human needs. It has warp engines which haven't been used in a long time. It's good at maneuvering to precise locations over the planetary surface for such a large vessel. It has big guns and a lot of them are pointed at the planet.

Well, that is not remotely reassuring! Graft outlines the plans Lucien requested and forwards the message. 

He also adds in his opinion that a coup is likely to be justifiable - the guns pointing at the planet are a terrible sign. 

Lucien works into the night, but eventually remembers that he (and his roommate Kurm) should sleep. So he does that.

In the morning the other oracles have sent back their angel messengers. (The other oracles are not angels themselves and have not left their mountains.) They are unanimous that they are commanded by their god to refuse to countenance warfare. But neither of the mortal oracles have anything to say about the ship.

This has interesting political implications he can think through later.

For now, he'll get back to work nailing down the basics of what the Samarians can benefit from, he'll have other crew members come down and take over once that's done.

The Samarians are living a pretty pleasant low-tech lifestyle, getting higher tech in fits and starts - apparently Alleluia's husband is a proficient inventor and engineer. There are pockets of subcultural and ethnic tension, but nothing they want space alien help with. They'll take trains and metallurgy and stuff like that.

Sure, he's happy to help sketch out what's possible in those domains.

"I think you might have the least... intense need for more advanced technology of any species I've enc-ountered."

"Oh uh. Except my own."

"I wouldn't know," says Linus politely.

"My species only started wanting lots of tech-nology once we realized that other people needed more so they wouldn't get sick or go hungry."

He isn't going to push the Samarians into opening up but he can at least try to start a dialogue.

"We are very fortunate to have Jovah's protection."

"Mm. Yeah."

"My species gets by on not needing much. Others aren't as lucky and we try to help them."

"It's a curious occupation, especially for a people under threat."

"We don't do it as much as we used to."

"We uh, also figure that everyone else is under just as much of a threat as we are."

"That did seem to be the thrust of your story, but of course you'd have more firsthand information."

"Mhm."

"I... don't know if um. Offering to take you to see things would help? Or showing you images? I'm not sure."

Also possibly he would rather Lucien stop trying to convince them at all, but Lucien ... feels like he shouldn't make this offer.

"I don't think I can justify being away from my people for any length of time, though possibly I could locate a volunteer interested in going with you."

"Yeah, that would work! Someone who you'd trust as a reliable observer?"

"There's a young angel from the Eyrie, rather the favorite as my successor though Jovah has yet to speak on the matter. Isabella, daughter of the angel Rinnah and the mortal Charles."

"She sounds like a really great choice for this!"

Lucien can't help but smiling - a chance to convince the Samarians of the threat of the Borg would pl-ausibly mean that they can get the Samarians on-board with things without having to do a coup! Might have trouble with the oracles, but with the non-reigious leadership on their side things would become a lot more ethically clear! 

... It occurs to him that the bar for good news has been lowered considerably since the time amaliens thought they were alone in the universe. But still, he can't help but smiling.

"She's a bright young thing. I can send for her, or write her a letter if you'd sooner go to the Eyrie yourselves."

Hm. He's in a hurry but doesn't want to push things to be faster than is best for them.

"You can send for her if that's what you'd prefer. There's plenty to work on here."

Linus nods and sends a servant to go dispatch an angel with this message.

Lucien can return to working out details of how the amaliens can help while they wait! He also takes a moment during a break to message First Officer Graft about the diplomatic progress - he considers asking Graft to focus less on the ship disabling plans but actually he thinks that would be mi-cro-managing which is a thing he knows he might do on accident so he leaves it up to Graft instead. 

And a few hours later, the angel Isabella alights on the landing of Monteverde.

Lucien is taking a break for a meal when she arrives.

A servant lets him know that the angel Isabella has arrived and is awaiting his convenience.

Sure he can go see her now! He is excited and nervous about the possibility of resolving things diplomatically.

"Hi! I'm Captain Lucien - I'm uh, not sure what you've been told about the situation?"

"I was informed that visitors from another world had appeared and Linus thought I would like to be assigned to speak to them - to you."

"Oh that's less than I thought."

.... Wait is he 

He can explain the deal with the Borg again! He can...  oh is he not supposed to be mentioning the giant high-tech ship. 

He can avoiding mentioning the ship but explain that they would like to help the Samarian's prepare to defend themselves if need be, and imply that the Samarians might be able to help with the war. 

"It's - disappointing to hear that everyone else out there hasn't found a way to stop being at war.

"How would we help? We'd take more in training and infrastructure than we could supply in manpower any time soon. Are angels in particular needed for something, I could imagine those not existing on other worlds?"

Wow, he is really regretting not having cleared what he can tell her.

"I'm not entirely certain what your Oracles are comfortable with my telling you about the exact me-chanics about how you can help us."

"You do have abilities that we don't have that I think could plausibly make a substantial difference."

"- the oracles? What did Jovah tell them?"

"I am not actually certain what Oracle Alleluia would think it's okay for me to share."

Lucien looks quite awkward about this - he dislikes not being open when doing diplomacy.

"Huh. I don't know her as well as Peninnah, I studied with Peninnah for a year. - wait, is Alleluia here? I could just go ask her if she is."

"She is! I was actually planning to go and ask her what I can say after this conversation but you asking her yourself would work just as well."

"I'll go do that and come back."

She goes.

Lucien does not like having to be careful about sharing information and this whole thing is very awk-ward and Alleluia never actually told him not to tell anyone about the ship - just to not ask questions. But also that seems like a thing that she maybe meant to imply those she wasn't clear on exactly what was secret. 

Also it occurs to Lucien that in fact Alleluia wasn't the one who invited Isabella - Linus did that and he has no idea if Alleluia even knew. This could have really difficult political implications and -.

At this point Lucien catches himself trying to think up difficult and complicated scenarios before they actually happen and instead he will decide to not do that. He will outline irrigation plans for Samaria on his datapad instead. He is aware Samaria doesn't actually need new irrigation but it's relaxing to take a break and diagram plans about it regardless.

Isabella sweeps in - she flares out her wings more than other angels do while she's walking - and sits back down.

Alleluia comes in and closes the door behind them.

"I need to know," says Alleluia, "if you're going to work with Isabella as the Samarian - ambassador, or what have you."

"If she's the one visiting us her being the Samarian ambassador would make sense?"

"Yes, the question is whether you in fact get along with her well enough for that to work out or if you're going to want the next candidate."

"Well, I generally do my best to get along with everyone but I don't ex-actly know Isabella yet?"

"Well. Let me know. In the meantime I don't think being interviewed for the role qualifies her for any sensitive information."

"Okay."

He can interview Isabella then! Um. What would she say her strengths are? 

"I'm analytical, responsible, and reflective. Generally quick with new concepts."

Those certainly are useful strengths for someone to have given that what he wants them to do is verify that in fact they should be helping against the Borg.

"Do you have any examples of sit-uations where you those strengths came into play?"

"Well, of course most of my work is answering petitions, but I'm good at figuring out efficient routes between a few of them given what the weather is and what the petitions will do to change it, and I've been offered assignments with multiple stops since I was fifteen, usually they don't let younger angels do that till they're older because they'll get sidetracked or drunk or lost or forget what they're supposed to be doing. In the Eyrie I've sometimes handled petitions that didn't involve flying out somewhere to pray too - I'm often the first to catch that some proposed solution to some problem would let people get away with, say, fencing Edori out of their usual haunts, or hassling citizens about compliance with some point of law to the point that it'd constitute a punishment even of the innocent, that sort of thing."

"Could you say more about the Edori thing?"

"The Edori are a usually-nomadic minority. Before the Archangel Gabriel outlawed it they were sometimes kidnapped and enslaved; they still don't reliably get along with stationary peoples - cultural differences, competing needs. So, let's see, last summer I was presented with a proposal to let the city of Semorrah charge an entry fee to travelers - not per head, but per family. I think this is a bad idea for a variety of reasons and Linus did ultimately reject it but one thing that I flagged first was that they'd defined family to require marriage, and Edori don't marry. So if they'd had a pair of lovers and their four children coming through - visiting a settled-down loved one or visiting the market or what have you - they'd have been able to charge them as six separate people. They hadn't even worded it to let the mother and her children be one family and the lover be another."

This sure does sound like someone who can notice things that others wouldn't and who can adapt to different situations.

"How do you expect you'll cope with being away from Samaria for an extended prior of time?"

"Well, I'll miss it. Especially since I suspect there isn't room to fly on spaceships. But it seems like it's important, and at least I don't have children or a husband or anything."

"There'd be some places with room to fly - though not on my ship which you'll be on for much of the time I expect."

"How trustworthy do others find you? I'm asking because a lot of the point of you being an ambassador would be for you to be able to report back based on your experiences and for you to have sway among other Samarians while doing so."

"Well, I'm not them, so I can't say definitively. I do think that they'll expect me to be honest in my reports and sincere in my judgments."

"Uh. Would they expect you to be misled?"

Probably Linus would not have selected her if so but he is trying to be careful since this seems like an important decision.

"I don't think they will expect me to be misled in such a way that sending someone else would have improved matters, but I don't know how much they trust you not to lie to people.'

"Mhm, I do my best to be as legibly honest as I can be but it's a hard thing to signal."

"Do you think you'd be able to deal well with situations where we make diff-icult decisions that you might disagree with?"

"Well, that sort of depends on what you mean."

"If someone commits a crime we'd expect you to let our justice system handle it - though it wouldn't apply to you beyond making the decision to return you to your home planet."

"Also we are generally willing to contact, trade, and ally ourselves with most people. This includes giving tech to pre-spacefaring places, providing asylum for genetically modified people, and trading with very nearly anyone. We'd expect you to allow us to do these things without interference if it ever comes up."

"We do attack Borg ships, including pre-emptively, and would expect your non-interference with this. This could come up given that understanding the Borg is a major thing why we'd like of an ambassador from Samaria. I expect we'll avoid conflict significantly more than usual but it's still a substantial risk given how combative the Borg are."

"I don't have a problem with gifts or asylum or trade. It's understandable if you are in a war that this involves all of the standard horrors of war such as attacking your enemies but if you kill all the Borg you run into I will never meet any and will not have very well-founded beliefs about their character. Particularly if you have this policy then I can't derive any information from it if they attack you preemptively; that's just symmetrical."

"Yeah, I expect I'll refrain from any combat that isn't necessary to avoid clear to me imminent danger."

"It's actually quite difficult to find situations where it's at all safe to be around them but I have some ideas - you meeting Borgs is important. We don't have an official policy of preemptively attacking them on sight, but in practice virtually the only situation in which they notice us and don't attack is one where they think they will lose and go and get backup instead. Also preemptively attack them is technically illegal for Amaliens, but in practice we don't enforce any sentence or repr-ecussion for doing so."

"How did that come about?"

"The Amalien Alliance legal code exists more as a commitment to the values we share than anything else - hurting anyone is con-sidered bad under those values, no matter the circumstances. But in pra-ctice we have to make choices where someone is going to get hurt no matter what but we wanted to re-member that... just because the Borg won't stop attacking us doesn't mean they hurt less? If it would make the world better to be the sort of people who would surr-ender to the Borg we would want to be that sort of people."

"I can't think of many cases where this came up? There was a case where an engineer proposed using lasers on a lower setting than was typically, even though it probably would kill Borg more painfully, because it would allow ships to conserve power. Our legal system says that sort of thing is illegal and uh, 'because we wanted enough power to make desserts with our food synthesizer' would not be enough to prevent us from taking actions to stop that sort of thing."

"Mm.

"Do you have a plan in mind for arranging for me, or whoever the ambassador ultimately is, to meet a Borg safely?"

"We might be able to corner some Borg in a situation where they won't risk attacking us and can't leave to get reinforcements. Possibly we could sneak you on to a planet that's being assimilated under circumstances where it's possible to blend in, though we'd have to figure out a reliable way of getting you out afterwards. There're also a few prisoners I believe."

"They sound like challenging prisoners."

"Yes, though I believe there are a few they are exceptionally expensive to keep and don't seem to strongly prefer it to death."

"Um, we have tried figuring out ways to scale making them harmless and have not figured out anything that's remotely possible yet."

"Also, related to the Borg in general - are you sure you are willing and able to deal with seeing fairly intensely horrifying things?"

"Well, I've seen people who were - dying? Of various things? I don't have any way to be sure I'm robust against more intense things."

"Hm, do you have any guess as to what sort of failure modes might come up or whether there would be other potential ambassadors significantly more likely to be robust than you?"

His best guess is she'd probably hold up well, but he doesn't have much evidence for this.

"I guess you could go with someone older? I'm honestly not sure what I should be imagining here to project my possible reactions."

"Uh, I can give you examples of the sorts of things if you'd be comfortable with that?"

"Certainly better than being confronted with the actuality without having ever heard a description!"

He actually has a video about Borg assimilation that would be appropriate for this (with skippable graphics if necessary). It's used to explain things like why Amaliens allow attacks with significant collateral damage if the alternative is the assimilation of a planet, or why it's a standard feature of battleships to have self-destruct mechanisms. Some planets also use it for recruitment though the Amalien Alliance has no official policy on that.

CW: Horrifying things including body horror and such. It really is quite bad.

Lucien will back off and pause things if Isabella seems to be having an acutely bad time with any of the video.

Well, surely it would be worse if she were somehow managing to have a good time with it. (She's actually pretty distracted by the concept of video footage at first.)

Lucien would .... probably prefer she have a good time with it absent the potentially horrifying implications doing so would entail! 

He can rewind so she can rewatch the beginning part if she missed it being distracted by video footage existing.

No thanks! Maybe there are other videos in the world?

Sure uh. If she wants to see something not horrifying uh. The most recent non-war related video he was watching on this datapad turns out to be a relaxing playthrough of a civilization building game?

Well, that's very differently impressive than real life recordings, but still cool.

He agrees and hopefully it also serves as a good breather after the rather terrible video!

"I imagine if I'm ever in a position to get a closer look at events like that I'll have more immediate problems than my psychological health," she says after a few minutes, "but when that rises to the top of the prioritization I think I'll be able to manage it."

"Okay."

He thinks he will trust her assessment of her ability to deal with this sort of thing.

Another other questions he should ask her...

"Oh uh. A substantial amount of the Amalien Alliance's leadership is my species - the amaliens. The alliance initially started as a coalition of us and the species we'd provided technology too. My species looks rather young by the stand-ards of most places. I'm guessing this won't be a problem for you? Uh, amaliens also can act in ways people read as young like how we speak, but this doesn't impact our competence."

"Oh, I wasn't sure if that was just you, you could have just been - small, or a prodigy - I suppose I can get used to it. Why do you act young in addition to looking it, if you aren't?"

"I'm not entirely certain. My species doesn't age physically, and while we're emotionally mature it's often in ways distinct from most cultures - we're far more likely to cry in public than adults of most species but far less likely to have... a destructive emotional outburst. We tend to ignore or suppress our emotions less than other species but are able to function and make decisions we endorse in states of extreme distress."

"My first officer is actually a Nradian, a species that has an additional developmental stage  that builds further upon the developmental changes of their first adolescence. They seem to view most humanoids similar to how most humanoids view my species." 

"Oh, how interesting. Have you met our - civilizational cousins, descendants of the neighbors of the original Samarian settlers? I've always wondered if they eventually wiped themselves out or not."

"Your region of space doesn't contain any other civilizations, though it does contain signs of the use of advanced weaponry that would be consistent with them having wiped themselves out."

"That's a pity."

"Mutual destruction like that isn't unheard of though it's far from the default."

"Well. I suppose it'd be my job to see if we in fact have the luxury of continuing to avoid the war that killed our ancestors' homelands."

"Mhm."

This is a very sensible way of putting it! Lucien asks a few more questions just in case but wraps up the interview pretty soon, notifying Alleluia that Isabella seems like she'll make an excellent ambassador.

In that case Alleluia is going to go fly off with Isabella, all the way back to Mount Sinai, where she will spend the night, and she'll be back tomorrow or the day after - Isabella's home the Eyrie is closer if they're in a hurry and would prefer to meet her there. Before they take off Alleluia tells Lucien that when he next sees Isabella there will be no need to keep secrets from her.

Lucien meets her at the Eyrie - a couple of other members of his ship fly down to replace him and Kurm at Monteverde now that the basics have been dealt with.

The Eyrie is a lot like Monteverde except that twenty four hours a day at least two people are singing together in a place that lets their voices resonate throughout the whole hold.

Isabella comes home to it around lunchtime looking very sober and troubled.

Lucien enjoys the singing.

"Um. I hope everything's all right?"

"Everything's fine. Thank you."

He won't ask.

"I'm ready to leave when you are - I'd prefer sooner rather than later but if you need time to say goodbye to people I can wait."

"Yes, I should at least tell my parents and talk to Linus and pack. I should be ready in a few hours."

And a few hours later their shuttle departs for Starship Bridget. 

Lucien smiles.

"It's nice to be reminded of what going to space is like when it's not routine."

"It's so - blue. Samaria."

It really is.

Eventually they arrive at Starship Bridget in low earth orbit.

By galactic standards it's not much too look at - a dirty exterior and an interior that, while clean, is mostly given over to the bare essentials for its 24 person crew. Still, there are several additional bedrooms for any visitors, a mess hall, a large cargo bay (which the shuttle lands in) and a few miscellaneous common spaces.

"It occurs to me that you probably don't have angel-sized beds."

"What size are those?"

"Enough to let us sleep on our stomachs with our wings spread out - not to full span but close."

Lucien can re-quistion one from engineering! They can use other beds for spare parts if need be. He expects it won't be quite as perfect as a new one but it'll still be pretty good and done by this evening.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

"Um. Alleluia told me I don't need to keep secrets from you - does this mean she told you about the other ship orbiting your planet?"

Nod.

"Do you want to see it?"

"I've seen it."

"Ah, okay then."

Something is going on with Isabella. Possibly shock over finding out her country is run by people controlling a spaceship to pretend to be god and not an actual god.

"I'm uh, sorry that you didn't have a chance to learn about the ship prior to volunteering for this mission."

"Uh. Thank you."

Lucien shows her to her quarters.

"We'll be leaving in a few hours for Amalien space. If you'd like you can join on the bridge for when we jump to warp - it's a bit of a spectacle." he says, indicating the direction of the bridge.

"Thank you, will someone be able to let me know when that is?"

Someone can do that!

She'll watch the stars blur.

They even get a bit rainbow when the jump starts! This is actually a result of how out of date their ship is but it's still pretty.

Daily life on the ship on a trip this long isn't extremely interesting by the crew's standards - they're used to stops every few days. There's a bulk food synthesizer that is usd to provide an adequate buffet with shifting recipes - she can suggest dishes she'd like and they'll add it into the rotation. One of the common spaces is used as a gym for most of the day and as a movie theater at night (the crew tends towards movies that are over the top even by the standards of the culture they came from). A few crew members gather after meals to play a card game with collectible cards (they'll spot her some if she'd like). At the end of the first week Officer Graft digs up some old augmented reality headsets and organises a tournament that's a cross between laser tag and tennis, with most of the ship used as the arena. 

She's also free to peruse the extremely thorough multimedia library they keep onboard, or to shadow some of the crew members as they go about their duties. Lucien is the only person who looks as young as he does on the ship.

Isabella cannot participate in a cross between laser tag and tennis, but she will try all these other things. Movies are fascinating, the books are amazing, and she clearly has a lot to catch up on.

She'll put a couple of her favorite foods into the replicator.

The replicator is better at generating food in bulk the specific orders so everyone on the ship geta chance to taste her favorites - some enjoy them enough to suggest their own variants of her dishes that combine them with other cuisines.

A week and a half into the journey Lucien stops by her table at dinner.

"We're going to be passing by a planet we contacted a couple of years ago soon - I was thinking it would be good to check in on the away team we left their and the planet's friendly enough that we can hopefully stretch our legs. Or in your case wings too I guess? If you'd like the chance to fly before we get to Amalien Command in another week."

"I would love the chance to fly, I haven't gone this long without since I last injured a wing. What's the place like?"

"Lower tech level than your planet, but more populated - a few hundred million people. They have some of the most beautiful architecture I've seen - lots of giant elegant arches - they got real lucky on the geology front which made stone construction much easier. They ritually sacrifice consenting members of their population for big celebrations, but they know we find it upsetting and keep it out of sight out of politeness."

"Why do they do that?"

"Lots of cultures develop ways to die that seem high status and important to people - often it's death in combat but in this case it's death in celebratory ritual."  

"Death in combat is... not a useful comparison for me."

"My culture didn't have any recorded deaths at all until nearly a century ago - we don't really think there's a good way to die and given more options most cultures seem to agree with us."

"I'm not entirely certain what a good comparison for you would be - are there any deaths that are seen as particularly heroic in your history?"

"Well, I mean, if you die attempting to save someone from, I don't know, drowning, that would certainly be well-regarded?"

"Makes sense - I think dying to protect people is a pretty good way to die if you have to."

"The Palelle for some reason think dying in order to mark a big celebration gives you some of the credit for that celebration and thus is a good way to die. The Amalien Alliance away team on the planet has been trying to figure out ways to discourage it but it's not as high priority as curing infectious diseases or increasing robustness to extreme weather."

"Uh, your planet is an extreme outlier relative to apparent tech level on those things."

"I gather nobody else has a way to just sing away the storms."

"No."

"I was never told this explicitly but I'm guessing that's a function of the ship and not some other piece of advanced technology?"

Nod.

"I wonder if it's replicable - most of the techniques we have for dealing with weather are either very expensive and slow, or just treat the effects of the weather - crops that grow well during droughts, irrigation, sturdy construction techniques and such."

"Well, our ancestors must have put the ship together somehow." She flicks some imaginary dust off her feathers.

Lucien can change the subject.

A few days later they touch down on the planet.

The inhabitants are unusually stout for humanoids and have a second smaller pair of vestigial arms. They are quite happy to see the Amaliens! They have a large banquet prepared with the new crops they've planted and a tour of medical facilities and last (but clearly the thing they are most proud of) a room lit only by lightbulbs. They have Lucien flip the switch.

Isabella is provided with a wristband by the Amaliens that will track her location and status (and has a panic button) and told it's safe to fly around while they are here for the next several hours - though she should avoid the mountainous regions.

"Why's that?"

"I'm told that the giant basically-pterodactyls* there are carnivorous when sufficiently hungry - the ones outside of that region are obligate herbivores and harmless - locals interact with them all the time."

*Translated in whatever way makes the most sense to Isabella.

"Goodness. I would like to see one of the friendly ones but I'll stay out of the mountains."

Off she goes.

It's a nice day for flying! There are lots of beautiful arches she can fly through if she'd like, and a few friendly basically-pterodactyls are milling around higher up (they'll let her get close if she'd like) - they are much bigger than she was expecting.

Both of those are excitingly novel experiences to stretch her wings with.

Meanwhile, Lucien continues to meet with the locals and then huddles in private with the away team who give him a mixed report. The impressively fast population growth projections the Palelle were bragging about were apparently accurate, and far higher than the Amaliens prior projections for the planet. Something with the micronutrients of their native crops were off and some variants provided by Amaliens had dramatically improved outcomes for younger Palelle in the six years since the Amaliens landed. 

The bad news was that this had outpaced the planets technological development in other respects and had apparently lead to a significantly increased rate of celebrations with their accompanying sacrifices, which at this point the away team was pretty confident was encouraged by social pressure that made the consent less than obviously enthusiastic in at least some cases.

Lucien glances at some figures before informing the away team that this is upsetting but probably still not worth focusing on unless the numbers keep rising past this threshold - probably they are based on relative progress, not absolute, so they should level off. 

More importantly they need a better industrial base, ideally paired with widespread contraception. This planet isn't in immediate danger from the Borg but there's a tail risk of a Borg incursion breaching the front lines, or the Borg finding another wormhole, and if that happened in thirty years with this rate of population growth and inability to defend themselves or run it would be quite bad. Uh, thinking about that um.

Probably they should also push for more urbanization - the current setup makes it really hard to torch the major population centers in the event of there not being enough time for evacuations. Can't risk this many people getting assimilated. 

The away team operatives are used to amaliens and so are not surprised when a few tears slide down Lucien's face as he talks. He doesn't get choked up or pause - he's used to this sort of conversation by now.

Hopefully Isabella is having a good break though. She seemed in need of one.

It's so nice to be up in the air, flying with weird space bat-things.

She comes back when she is expected and alights by the rest of the contingent.

"I hope you enjoyed your flight?"

"Yes! Those batlizards are tremendous."

Lucien smiles wanly.

"I'm glad to hear it! One of the away team is determined to figure out how to ride one of them - he swears it should be possible with the right harness."

"They do look big enough. I could carry him if he'd like, as an interim measure."

"Probably best to save it for another trip - the plan is to leave within the hour."

"Next time."

"Mm. You'd probably have to go pretty far out of your way to return in a reasonable amount of time. We only stopped here because it's on the way and I figured the crew could use a break. It's been three years since anyone else stopped here I think."

"Are they doing well? I don't know what it was like before."

"A lot more food - some of which turned out to be filling nutritionally niches that weren't being filled before so the populations growing quite fast."

What's the correct level of 'she just got a break' and 'the Borg are terrible and that is just how reality is' to say here....

"A lot of what I was talking to the away team about was that this planet's population is growing too fast relative to their ability to defend against or escape assimilation by the Borg."

"I uh, don't want to get in the way of your having a nice break here but also don't want to hide things."

"How long have you been at this? I'd expect a population response to there suddenly being - more nutritious food - to take some time."

"It's been 7 years since we landed here - turns out there were some fairly extreme nutritional issues in early childhood that the recent crops have been addressing - some underlying condition that increases mortality and sterility. Most of the time parents would have a cluster of 3 to 5 kids every couple of years and only one or two would go on to have kids of their own - now most of them will. The population growth is largely a forecast of the future, it's only just started to show up in the actual figures."

"Huh. Why were they so poorly nourished?"

"Agriculture can often result in some amount of it early on, and my guess is that in this case it was helpful in preventing their population from outpacing their food supply - some places have a cycle of famines for a while as a result."

"Their level of malnutrition is still unusually high - I'm not sure why."

"Are they from here originally?"

Some datapad clicks later - "Yeah, seems like it. Most people are native to their planets when they are at this level of tech."

"I guess that stands to reason. Odd that the food would be bad for them then."

"Hm, does your planet have issues with malnutrition?"

"Sometimes people will have some kinds of problems in the wintertime particularly? I don't think people are often so malnourished they can't have a baby."

"Hm, that sounds substantially better than average for your tech level - could be related to why Oracle Alleluia said that you wouldn't need to import seeds from us, if your crops were already unusually well suited for your biology."