Fading Suns - Eyes Only - Dossier on the Vau.pdf - Gasnące Słońca - Vickay

IMPERIAL EYE DOSSIER — EYES ONLY

Recipient: Vril-Ya Envoys

Author: SPIDERWEB

Concerning: Dossier on the Vau

This document has been prepared to brief you on everything known about the Vau. As you can see, it is

astonishingly thin. The verified facts concerning the Vau and the Hegemony are all too few, and much of the

data is incomplete. To this end, the opinions and speculations of many experts — some from as long ago as

the Diaspora and Second Republic — have been compiled, in an attempt to complete the portrait. Only the

most useful of such musings have been included, since any wrong assumptions here could prove deadly to

agents who actually manage to infiltrate the Hegemony.

Good luck.

History

In 2845, the Vau first appeared to humanity and delivered a crushing defeat to the colonists of New

Monaco (now Apshai). Three years of useless and vain attempts at retribution by various Diasporan govern-

ments eventually led to the Vau’s acceptance of an official envoy, Benjamin Verden of House Justinian. While

the raids into Hegemony space always resulted in the terrible deaths of the raiders, their frequency had

become an annoyance to the Vau. They accepted Verden’s visit in an attempt to quit the raids for good, with

the veiled threat that, should this diplomacy fail, the Hegemony would act to disable humanity’s ability to

conduct the raids.

This threat caused panic and fear on many worlds, as word of it spread through the jumpweb. Many local

governments were toppled by uprisings, their governors blamed for the aggression against the Vau, al-

though it was often popular opinion that pressed these governments for victory in the first place. Noble

families used the upheavals to move in and stabilize regions, safeguarding them until democratic govern-

ments could again be elected, while mercantile conglomorates seized power in other areas. Here and there,

acolytes of the new and growing Church spoke out against such seizures of proper power, and urged calm in

the face of the Hegemony’s threat.

The Prophet himself broke a long fast and meditation to deliver a sermon concerning humanity’s problem

with the alien empire. Although the actual script of this sermon is lost, most theologians agree that the

version handed down to us by Palamedes is correct. The Prophet warned humanity to “guard its own fields,”

and to worry not about the “wilderness encroaching from without,” but to instead beware the “untamed

wild within.” This was one year prior to his own diplomatic mission in 2849, which resulted in his death

during jumpgate travel.

Benjamin Verden was ferried by a Vau cruiser to the planet called “Vau” by most humans. (The name

Verden gave for it in the Vau tongue — Shaduveen’Lan Tuomani — was hard to pronounce by those un-

IMPERIAL EYE DOSSIER — EYES ONLY

trained in the language, and was only used by diplomats.) There he witnessed marvels of technology never

yet seen by humans, and — judging from the details given in his reports — unachieved even by the later

Second Republic.

Most observers today know about the repulsor plates (bafuvupan dahum), Life Cocoons (eevsu’ud

rumuld’hansth), Smart Robes (numunanth ofleed’hansth) and lightsplinters (halsh’rumu tla’a). Everyone also

knows that our own energy shields and blaster tech was developed by reverse engineering Vautech. It comes

as no surprise to state that the Vau’s own shields and blasters are more advanced than ours. Largely forgotten

are Verden’s accounts of collapsible buildings — somewhat like Smart Robes but on a massive scale — and

flitters with remarkable maneuverability.

What few people realize today is that not all of Verden’s report was widely published. Much of it was kept

secret, shared only with certain officials. Most of these survived to become core members of the Second

Republic’s First Council, whereupon the information was sealed and stored with the Republic’s nascent intel-

ligence service. It was considered highly classified, and was only seen by certain military personnel and

diplomats working the Vau frontier.

During the data purges of the Fall, the files were lost. The consistent failures of the noble houses, patri-

arch and Merchant League to gain any new advances in Vau diplomacy stem from this lack of key informa-

tion. Indeed, it must have seemed to the Vau that humans had lost all the secrets of successful diplomacy, as

inadvertent faux pas based on ignorance insulted countless Mandarins. Eventually, the Vau withdrew at-

tempts at communication and remained removed from all but scant human contact for centuries, only com-

ing forth once more after Vladimir’s ascendancy.

Nonetheless, they were distant and their borders closed even more tightly than before. Previously, unin-

vited forays into Vau space resulted in the invading ships being towed back to the Known Worlds. Now ships

were often fired upon. If they did not immediately heed the warnings, they were destroyed.

During the Emperor Wars, Imperial Eye agents on both Cadiz and Manitou uncovered copies of Verden’s

original reports, along with successive data on Second Republic intelligence operations against the Vau. The

Decados were unaware of the data on Cadiz, hidden in forgotten think machines buried deep under old

diplomatic offices. The files on Manitou were obtained in Vau territory at the cost of two agents’ lives. Strangely,

no retribution or comment from the Vau followed this incident.

While these files have since been kept in the greatest secrecy, for the Emperor and his agents’ eyes only,

we suspect that some of the other intelligence services have portions of this information, gained through

means best not discussed here.

This is information any agent would surely kill to obtain. You are privileged to read it now, by order of the

Emperor himself. It is vital that you are as prepared as possible for this first full envoyship to the Hegemony

since the Fall of the Second Republic.

The Vau

As you are surely well aware, the Vau have a caste society consisting of at least three castes: Mandarins

(leaders), Soldiers and Workers. Hints suggest that there may be sub-classes within these castes, but no

evidence of other castes is known.

Before discussing the castes, some general notes on physiology may prove helpful, since it differs some-

what between castes — genetic heritage seems to be the key decider in a Vau’s caste role.

We believe the Vau are related to amphibians or reptiles. Their leathery skin resembles that of the Hironem,

although their bone structure is quite different. Their legs suggest descent from a fleet-footed animal, al-

though whether this was a predator, herd beast or scavenger is unknown. Too much time exists between the

present Vau and their distant ancestors to draw any conclusions as to their evolution of consciousness and

current culture.

IMPERIAL EYE DOSSIER — EYES ONLY

Average height varies with caste. Mandarins are the tallest (average 10’), followed by Soldiers (8’) and

then Workers (6’). Girth or width also seems to vary by caste, with Soldiers the broadest, Workers average

and Mandarins slender.

A Vau’s eyes consist of large pupils with no whites, similar to the Ur-Obun and Ur-Ukar. However, unlike

those cousin races, the coloring of Vau pupils varies. Visitors have witnessed black, blue and red. The shad-

ing seems to vary with mood, growing darker or lighter at times, although neither Verden nor other agents

knew enough Vau psychology to determine which is more favorable.

Vau hands are surprisingly humanlike, but with longer, more slender fingers, which appear to be double-

jointed in at least the Worker caste.

Dress is surprisingly standard among castes — at least, among those living near humans on Vril-Ya,

Manitou and Apshai. There is variance in minor details, but on the whole, Mandarins tend to look very much

alike in their green robes and aesthetically sculpted harnasses, while Soldiers wear the same armored uni-

forms, differing in badges and glyph symbols. Workers have the widest variety, from leggings to tunics and

robes, depending on their labors.

We believe that caste behavior is not simply determined by societal expectations, but may involve actual

genetic behavior patterns that control a Vau’s reactions to certain circumstances and align his or her goals

with the overall purposes of his caste. In other words, a Worker feels a real

need to perform constructive labor and gains satisfaction in its

performance and completion, while a Soldier has a

priori martial assumptions, governed strongly by Man-

darin “alphas.” Indeed, it may be possible that Man-

darins are much more intelligent than Soldiers and

Workers.

Gender roles are unclear. Physical differences be-

tween sexes are not readily apparent, and few un-

clothed Vau have been witnessed; no examination

of sexual organs exists. However, Verden claimed that

both males and females fulfill roles within all castes,

although he never explained his reasons for believing

so. He did reveal an interesting fact: Vau are not birthed

live, but hatch from eggs. They are born in clutches, each

of which contains a variety of castes, although not all

clutches host a Mandarin. A Vau’s closest and most pre-

cious social ties are to his clutchmates, even mates of

other castes. The luckiest Workers and Soldiers are those

born in the same clutch as a Mandarin, whom they

serve for the rest of their lives as favored advisors.

The Vau language contains many dialects, some vary-

ing radically from one another. The High Speech is known

only to Mandarins, while Middle Speech is spoken by all

castes. Three forms of Low Speech are known: Worker caste,

Soldier caste, and the Foreign Tongue, that dialect spoken

to non-Vau. It is also the diplomatic language learned and

studied by Verden; the phonetic terms he recorded are part

of this dialect. Ironically, the Foreign Tongue is closer to the

High Speech than other dialects, since it was seemingly invented

Vau Mandarin

IMPERIAL EYE DOSSIER — EYES ONLY

by Mandarins in recent history (i.e., just before or soon after human contact).

As for writing, there are three forms: prophecy glyphs (those used in the Valukesh Ha’eni oracle), Val’eni

(High Speech glyphs), and Ban’eni (common glyphs). All of these scripts use pictographic characters, each

with voluminous amounts of glyphs readers must memorize.

Verden’s phonetic alphabet and vocabulary was based solely on oral transmissions; he did not under-

stand enough glyphs to translate Vau writings. Second Republic diplomats realized that many of Verden’s

supposed “stems” were wrong — the Foreign Tongue apparently has little consistency in its adaptation of

High Speech terms (this is perhaps intentional, to prevent foreigners from easily understanding High Speech).

Learning to speak Vau is a continual process of learning individual vocabulary terms and their numerous

exceptions. Some concepts for which the Vau have words are untranslatable to us due to their alien nature.

For instance, Verden recorded many words for smells he could not sense through his Smart Robe filter. After

drinking what he believed to be a Vau wine, Verden swears to have seen a color that does not exist — at

least, within the spectrum of normal human vision. As he stammeringly tried to describe it, a Mandarin, after

realizing that it was color the human diplomat was attempting to comprehend, helpfully suggested some

words (Verden chose a shortened version, sho’in) and even pointed out the color’s location on the electro-

magnetic spectrum using a crystal prism and chart (it is below red, but above infrared).

The next morning, when the drink’s effects wore off, Verden could not find the color again, leading him

to believe the whole event may have been a practical joke. However, Jovan Ost, a famed Second Republic

diplomat, claimed to have also seen sho’in revealed to him after a

bout of unintentional food poisoning on Vril-Ya. (This event helped

reveal just how much the Vau know about human anatomy,

as his hosts apologetically purged him and returned him

to health with only three draughts of a liquid.)

The Hegemony

At the time of Verden’s visit to

Shaduveen’Lan Tuomani (“Resplen-

dent Fortress of Auspicious Entry,”

often called simply Shaduveen for

short), the Hegemony consisted of at least

50 worlds — or so Verden judged, based off

a brief glimpse he had of a holographic star chart.

He suspected that there were more worlds not yet

admitted as full members of the Hegemony.

A two-dimensional image of such a three-dimensional

map projection was captured during the Second Repub-

lic by a trade envoy. After study of this faulty image by

star pilots and intelligence agents, it was assumed that

the Hegemony totaled at least 61 planets. However, the

experts could not agree on the interpretation of all the

markings and glyphs.

Based on the strange descriptions Verden gave us

of Shaduveen, Vau worlds are terraformed differently

than human planets. Second Republic intelligence on

this topic leads some to believe that the Vau do not

terraform their worlds, but instead adapt to them

Vau Soldier

IMPERIAL EYE DOSSIER — EYES ONLY

Soldier (note horns - unique to this caste)

using their advanced Smart Robe and Life Cocoon technology. Verden claims

that he was forced to wear a Smart Robe that filtered out atmospheric poi-

sons deadly to humans but pleasant to the Vau. Unable to smell the air him-

self, he could not translate the word his guides used to describe its unique

scent, which the Vau seemed to treat as a treasure.

Aliens

This leads to the obvious topic of sentient alien races: Are there any

living within the Hegemony that are as yet unknown to humans?

Verden’s descriptions of never-before-seen-by-human eyes alien races

was among the information kept secret from the general populace. Dur-

ing his time, troubles with the Ukari and Vau were already bad enough,

and officials feared informing their constituents about more potentially

hostile races. Later, intelligence agencies and Church officials helped to

hide this information from the commonwealth of humanity.

I present some of his descriptions below:

Velek (incomplete name): Verden was filled with a sense of dread upon meeting one of these creatures,

apparently a large, sentient crustacean. Its width and overall size — in addition to massive pincer claws —

caused him to assume it was a warrior, although successive intelligence reports point to more of a Worker

role.

“Naga” (actual name unknown): Verden witnessed large, sentient snakelike aliens that could rise on

their sinuous torsos to stand as high as most humans. Their tails ended in a radial array of highly dextrous

tentacles by which they manipulated objects and weaponry. He did not learn this race’s name, and so dubbed

them “Naga” (Nagas plural), after a mythological beast from ancient Urth.

“Edgewalker” (actual name unknown): These tall, broad humanoids could be mistaken for severely

Changed humans, so greatly does their basic physiology resemble ours. They are, however, mishapen: broad

shoulders, thick necks and slim waists. What’s more, the members in the group Verden saw had different,

shockingly bright skin colorings and patterns: dark black with thick white stripes, red with blue stripes, and

blue with orange stripes. They walked with a regal discipline Verden had before seen only among martial arts

experts, leading him to believe that those he saw were warriors. The name comes from the only words

Verden’s guides used to describe them: “They walk the edges of frontiers.”

There may, of course, be many other races as yet unknown. We believe that only some of those listed

above have free sovereignty; others may exist confined to their homeworlds (such as the G’nesh of Apshai?).

Technology

The most formidable threat the Vau pose is their very mystery. We cannot control what we don’t under-

stand. Even once understood, however, the Vau have a vast superiority in technology and resources.

Starships

The Vau use an advanced alloy for their ship hulls which we have never been able to analyze. Certain

Second Republic corporations supposedly made some leeway in studying samples, but the results were con-

sidered corporate secrets. From an era where corporate security rivaled that of the central government, none

of this research has survived in the intelligence records we inherited, and the guilds have not come forth with

such information. Whatever the metal is, it is recognizable for its greenish-coppery tint.

Vau ships have no gun emplacements, but instead harness a massive plasma ball kept suspended be-

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