Ravens of Eternity

107 Lacroseth City

Eva and Miko found themselves cruising high above the city, which the Justicars referred to as Lacroseth, the capital of Taloren Prime, and of the Drogar Imperium as a whole. Their EyeCasts hovered nearby as they looked at the sights all around.

They rode in a relatively common transport gondola. Similar to the Federation’s van-like hoppers, the gondola was the standard in hover transport in Drogar society. Unlike the hoppers, the gondolas were essentially simple platforms with a control deck in the center, and capped by a transparent dome.

It pretty much mirrored the huge domed city of Lacroseth itself, though far smaller in size.

In comparison, the city was incredibly wide. Every city on Taloren Prime was exactly 200 kilometers in diameter, and each one was filled with roughly half a billion people. From what they were able to gather, there were hundreds of them out on the surface of Taloren Prime.

As they had seen before, the city resembled a gigantic and colorful coral reef. The buildings that sprawled all around had the same structure as coral, wherein they appeared to grow upward, or outward, or both.

Though, instead of calcium carbonate, they were made of high-durability metal alloys of varying transparency, texture, and color. What was most impressive was that every single structure had elegant, organic curves, and all were unique.

They looked as though they were grown rather than built. Drogar architecture was significantly different from humans, who had preferred straight and narrow aesthetics for millennia.

And just like undersea coral reefs, each of the buildings teemed with activity. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes wove in the space around, between, and through them all. Eva could barely see the people down below, at least not individually. From their height, they all looked like dark masses that flowed this way and that.

Eva had noticed that the closer the buildings were to the center, the taller they were. In the very center, roughly 20km was a cluster of impossibly tall towers. The tallest of them reached over halfway up the top of the dome, which was 50km above the surface.

.....

These towers were colored bright red, and spiraled upwards beautifully and elegantly. Not only was it clearly marked as a Red Zone, but multitudes of patrol gondolas and fixed weapon emplacements helped illustrate its imperviousness.

Desire welled up in Eva the moment she saw them. For whatever reason, she felt the need to break into that zone and climb to the highest point.

When she asked what it was, Justicar Severas answered her plainly.

“It’s the seat of power for the entire Drogar Empire. Well, alright, Taloren Prime is what runs the Imperium. But those buildings right there are its beating heart.”

It wasn’t the only Red Zone in the city. In fact, there were hundreds of them dotted all over the place. Far smaller than the one at the center of course, but still everywhere. Almost uniformly so.

Beyond the Red Zones, the city also held all of the others that Retholis had mentioned. The largest among them were the Blue and Green Zones. There were some large swaths of Yellow and Orange, but nowhere near as much land.

Both Eva and Miko first assumed that they were purpose-built zones. Like in games they were familiar with, they thought that Green were residential districts, Blue were commercial, and Orange were industrial.

But that wasn’t the case at all. Every single zone had a variety of residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. They all had manufacturing plants, data and communications arrays, power generators, financial institutions.

Though they did notice that only certain things were built in certain zones.

Parks, entertainment and relaxation venues seemed to only exist in Blue, Green, and Yellow Zones. Security firms, private military barracks, and laboratories only existed in Yellow and Orange Zones. Governmental and military buildings only existed in Red Zones.

Eva wondered why the Drogar split themselves up like that.

Is it like us? She thought. Like how we split up the rich and the poor? Or is it more like a from-birth caste system?

As she looked it up through her DI, Miko glanced over the vast ocean that surrounded them. Her thoughts turned to the more ecological questions that the planet posed. While its inhabitants were good and well and very interesting, one massive question really nagged at Miko.

How did they evolve on this planet?

She tried her best to look up Drogar history, especially regarding Taloren Prime, but her access to their textbooks, news, and other historical files was dismally low. All she had access to was mostly Drogar-skewed history for the past 100 years.

No doubt incredibly strict network filters kept her out of the juiciest data. She was tempted to hack into the nearest private network, but decided to hold back for now. The last thing she wanted to do was get executed for indulging in her curiosity.

So instead, she simply asked.

“Justicar. This is your home planet, yes?”

Doleth was closest to Miko, so she happily answered her.

“Yes, Lacroseth is the birthplace of the Empire. From this planet, we conquered the solar system, then the systems around us, and then beyond. Hopefully, we’ll one day own the entire galaxy!”

“In that case, why is the planet covered with an ocean?”

Both Justicars were taken aback by Miko’s question. They were warned that she was incredibly insightful, but they didn’t think that she would have caught on to certain things simply by looking.

“Er, well,” answered Doleth, “I don’t quite get what you mean. There’s millions of ocean planets in the galaxy. Billions, probably. Ours just happens to be one of them.”

Miko shook her head.

“If the planet has always been an ocean, your species would have evolved into amphibians. Given how you have developed biologically, it is easy to determine that your planet used to be hot and dry. Perhaps you had great deserts, or great forests, or both. It is impossible for it to always have been an ocean planet.”

Severas laughed heartily.

“We aren’t supposed to talk about it,” she said. “Kind of our great shame, I guess. But you’re right. Taloren Prime only became an ocean planet in the last century or so.”

Severas turned away from the edge and moved closer to Miko. She sighed deeply – her home planet’s past was deeply troubling. Sharing any of it wasn’t strictly off the books, but it was considered conversational anathema.

“It’s a bit of an open secret among the Drogar,” she continued, “and an outright secret to all other species in the galaxy. I’m only telling you now simply ’cause I’m tired of keeping it. Whether you’re asked to erase your footage and forget what you heard... well, that’s up to the Swarmfather.

“But yeah, we used to have plenty of land. And it’s sorta like how Raijin explained it. There were three major climate zones on this planet. Equatorial rainforests, tundras, ice caps at the poles, and very few masses of water.

“Before we became a Type 1 civilization, most of us lived in the rainforests. As we headed towards true progress, our rainforests shrank while our ice caps melted. We were incredibly productive, and met incredible growth. But at the cost of the planet itself. By the time we hit Type 2, the planet had been turned into a series of barren tundras, surrounded by a vast ocean.

“At some point, we were met with an ecological disaster, and we had no choice but to fully melt down all of the ice. Heavens know – we even had to bring in water from other planets to stave off that disaster.”

Eva’s brow furrowed with concern. What sort of disaster required them to literally drown their planet in water?

“What the hell did you all do?”

Severas stared out into the ocean wordlessly. It was only after a few awkward moments had passed before she answered. When she did, her voice was dry.

“Let’s just say that we fought against ourselves over a force of nature we didn’t fully understand. And paid a heavy price for it.”

“At least you are still here,” said Miko. “Will you re-engineer the planet? Perhaps terraform it into something better than before?”

“Nah,” said Doleth. “It’s kind of a reminder of our greatest failure, you see.”

“What, so you choose not to fix it?” asked Eva. “Doesn’t that sound backwards to you? I mean, we humans tend to rebuild things when they fall. Usually ends up more resilient than before, too.”

“We do, as well,” replied Doleth. “I mean, restoring the planet isn’t entirely possible for other reasons, ecologically speaking. But beyond that, most of us feel that doing that wouldn’t do anything. Except maybe waste money on a hopeless project.”

“Most of you? What’s that mean? So some do want the planet back?”

Doleth grimaced when Eva picked up on what she had said. Her tongue had slipped a bit on that, and chastised herself inwardly.

“Ah, honestly,” she replied, “it’s mostly dissidents saying that. Only they really talk about going back to the way things were. As if it was actually possible.”

“Wait, so them having that position makes them dissidents? I don’t get it.”

“Oh! No, I didn’t mean that. People who take that position of going back – they only say that to be contrary. They don’t actually believe it. No-one really believes it because it’s actually impossible. But some people want to hear it, and so some people end up saying it over and over.”

“Dissidents in Parliament, huh?” said Eva. ” Sounds like a bad situation. I saw something like that, back in another lifetime. It never ends well.”

“They’re a plague,” agreed Doleth.

“You’d better do something about ’em. Luckily you’ve got that sweet anti-criminal lethality backing you up.”

Severas shook her head resolutely and interjected in their conversation.

“We can’t just neutralize ’em,” she said. “Thinking and speaking aren’t crimes here. We gotta wait until they act. And we’re all over ’em when they do.”

“Executed, right?”

“Exactly. Problem is, they don’t act. They talk and talk and talk. And yell and scream, and ultimately, someone listens. Others tend to act in their stead.”

“They’re getting way too much influence,” added Doleth.

“Yes, more influence. More power, more presence within Parliamentary halls. More and more year after year. And those who act for them get bolder, more violent.”

“But wait,” said Eva. “I remember Retholis mentioning there wasn’t any crime here. Was he lying or what?”

Severas perked her head at Eva. That was certainly a curious thing for him to say – that Taloren Prime was crime-free. In no way was any city free of crime. It was a key component of their very nature.

“Perhaps you misheard him,” she said. “What did he say, exactly?”

Eva thought back and tried her best to recall his words.

“Ah, it was something like, this world has almost zero criminals, and no-one’s been publicly executed anyone in a decade. Sounds like there’s no crime to me.”

“He’s honing his political edge more and more nowadays... Both statements are technically true, but hide the reality. There’s few criminals simply because we eliminate them. We execute them by the dozen, every cycle that passes. What we don’t do is expose those executions. The only executions that we do publicize are where terrorists and traitors are involved.”

Eva sighed. She should have known better.

“So what’ll you do about the people causing chaos for you?” she asked. “‘Coz I can tell you, if you let them be, they’re just gonna tear you all apart.”

Severas turned slightly and looked out over the city. Her brow furrowed as she thought about all of the people that lived in it. It was impossible to get them all to agree on anything.

“I know full well. It’d be easy for us if we could brand the dissidents as criminals. I’d wipe ’em out myself, in the most public and brutal ways possible. But they’re untouchable and unkillable – not while they shield themselves with the law.”