Getting Warhammered [WH 40k Fanfic]

194 – Playing Tourguide

In the end, my problematic guest wanted to visit the two arcologies whose inhabitants I thought handled their new life here best and worst respectively, to ‘get a grasp of both extremes’ he said. It was a reasonable thing to ask, and I was still intent on picking his brains about honing my newborn government system’s finer points. I did have the Water caste sub-brains to help me with that, but they didn’t work anywhere as well as they should have without the education and experience an actual Tau diplomat of the water caste would have. 

Only time and maybe a bit of brain-robbing could help me with that, but for now, I could use the Ethereal on hand as a whetstone to sharpen my ideas and turn them into something actually workable. I started on it right after the shuttle took off and the anti-grav propulsors went offline, taking with them my interest in studying the aircraft. 

He asked me to describe what I’d done so far, and when I did, he sported that thoughtful, sage-like look on his face that he seemed to default to whenever he had no other expression to make. 

“I’d say haste was the problem,” he said. “The thought to give them back control to calm their nerves quickly was reasonable, but perhaps something smaller could have sufficed for that, something lesser than electing a governor for their arcologies. Emotions still clouded their judgment, and those who felt they lost the election only had those peaking emotions further inflamed. We teach our diplomats that patience is a virtue, and I think you might have been in some need of it yourself.”

“Probably,” I hummed, nodding in agreement. I had been hasty and pretty antsy about getting the ball rolling as soon as possible. “Well, what’s done is done. All I can do now is damage control and try to do better next time. Speaking of next time, what would you have done differently?”

“What I would have done differently?” He leaned back, eyes glazing over a little as he seemed truly lost in thought. “I believe … I would have used the Naphram planet’s traditional form of election, in some form. The humans of that planet had a form of democracy wherein every city held a week-long festival every five years and during that festival, at set times, people who wished to nominate themselves for the position equivalent to a ‘Mayor’ would hold speeches and collect signatures at the end. Every speaker above a set number of signatures would be allowed to run for election, and a city-wide vote would be held on the last day of the festivities, following which the top three would engage in a final debate. Another vote would be held after that with only the three of them as options to be voted for. I think a variation of this form of election could have helped you both stretch out the election process until emotions calmed and made sure people were aware of who they could vote for while giving an avenue for would-be mayors to gather support from previous strangers in a controlled manner.”

I couldn’t replicate the system one for one. That system of election might have worked in sleepy little towns, home to a few thousand souls, but it would be problematic to implement in an arcology of a million inhabitants. 

Some changes could make it workable, though. I was reasonably certain of that, especially since that’s exactly what Aun’Saal said, too. The man had to have had a much more extensive history in leadership roles and as a member of the Tau ruling class than I had leading people, so his words held considerable weight. 

I could broadcast all the speeches on the local television for one, that could allow everyone to become familiar with their would-be politicians. Really, having the whole thing play out over the television could just solve most problems with the idea. 

“I think I like that idea,” I mused. “Well, nothing for it now. I won’t restart elections now, but I might implement some version of it the next time around and see how it goes. Our first stop is almost straight to the south from here, about 150 kilometres away. It’s hard to miss, so that much should be enough to find it.”

“Which extreme are we to see first?” Aun’Saal asked as he gestured for one of his guards, who nodded and hurried off towards the cockpit to notify the pilot of our destination. “Good or bad?”

“Good,” I said with a smile. “It should give me an idea of how they feel about aliens, which should prepare us for the next stop.”

“Very well.”

The shuttle flew fast, almost a bit too fast for how un-aerodynamic it was and how unexpectedly thick the moon’s atmosphere was. The answer ended up being in the energy shields, which didn’t cover the hull like a second skin but instead formed an actually aerodynamic shape around it. 

That got me thinking. I had been playing around with the types of shield technology on hand. Refractor fields were one type, small-scale personal shields that could, at most, cover a smaller vehicle when pushed to the limit. They were pretty cool as they worked through energy conversion and tended to transform the heat of plasma or las weaponry and the kinetic energy in every other projectile into light. That ended up causing quite the light shows whenever they got activated, turning a deadly firefight into a spectacle.

The second type I had on hand were the void-shields, though those required huge generators only void-ships and Titans could house. These worked on a much different technology, as they didn’t deflect or annihilate incoming energy or projectiles, but instead dumped them in the Warp. Where a missile could have blown through the power pack of a refractor shield, a void-shield teleported that lump of metal into the Warp like it was a regular piece of rock. 

The basic battle doctrine included with the latter’s description in Zedev’s info dump wrote that the usual countermeasures for void-shields were scattershot-type weapons. If deflecting a regular pebble costs just as much energy as warding off a plasma bolt, why not throw so much junk at it that it runs out of power? That was the thought process, at least. 

And my monkey drone managed to make a miniature void-shield generator I could fit in a regular car’s backseat. 

Tau energy shields seemed to be simpler, nothing as fancy as either of the Imperial designs. The blue aliens went for the old and reliable method of a thick film of semi-solid energy. It looked vaguely like a layer of some sort of plasma held in place by an energy field, but I could have been wrong. I only had my aura to examine it with, and I wasn’t familiar with the technology.

Well, my stolen shield technology was cooler anyway, so I didn’t even bother to try. How much cooler was it to just convert other types of dangerous energy into a dazzling light show instead of throwing up a lame energy bubble? A lot, in my very humble — and obviously correct — opinion.

The shuttle flew fast, and I didn’t have to bother with inane small-talk for long. I had ‘called’ ahead and notified the overseer of this arcology, so she and the elected representatives were aware that some foreign delegation was coming to have a look around. As we were closing in on the building, I also had to make a temporary landing pad near its top, like I’d done with the Fortress. It was a point of weakness, so it wouldn’t be staying there once the Tau left, but for now, it was, and I had to make the way it grew out of the building’s side somewhat believable, as the shuttle already had sights on it.

A rectangular part of the heavy carapace shielding the construct protruded, then detached from the rest and lifted upwards, revealing a cavernous opening behind it from which a horizontal landing pad slowly extended into the open air. 

“How come you decided to go with arcologies out of everything? And ones so heavily fortified?” Aun’Saal mused as he looked through some readout on his holo-pad. “Every one of these constructs would equal the primary headquarters of a planetary defense force on any lesser world.”

“I … might have gone a bit overboard with the fauna,” I confessed with a smile. “And while the Orks are reasonably well-behaved at the moment, I don’t trust the ones living in the wilds to not get ideas. Their long-term memory is shaky at best, and I doubt I’ll have to wait long until one of them tries something stupid. The arcologies make sure that my lack of foresight and the orks’ stupidity doesn’t harm any of the humans.”

“Fauna?” The Ethereal asked in surprise. “You imported wildlife … No. You can create them with your ‘World Seed’, is that what you called it?”

“It … was,” I think. I came up with the name on the spot when I said it. “And I can replicate

I could have come up with some bullshit excuse, but I realised they would have been seen through with little effort. Especially when we met the overseer who looked like a mini carbon copy of me … or rather, she used to. 

She was one of the very few among my many daughters who chose a name for herself instead of asking me for one. The girl seemed to take having so many sisters who were so similar to her as a personal affront and did just about anything she could to be as unique as possible.

“Will that hold?” One of the guards asked in a whisper, looking over the holo-feed of the extended landing pad.

“Of course it will,” I answered with a roll of my eyes and felt the man stiffen imperceptibly, shock radiating off of him. Oh, right, he had his ‘sound-proof’ helmet on, so only his squad mates should have heard his words through the comm-link. Oops? 

Aun’Saal just gave me this long look, and I smiled innocently, knowing my ‘threat level’ just went up in his head another notch. Not only could I fight and use strange human ‘mind-sorcery’, but I also somehow infiltrated his men’s unquestionably top-of-the-line encrypted communications. He didn’t need to know that my tech-saviness had nothing to do with that and my aura picking up the vibrations of the air inside their helmets despite them being insulated had everything to do with it. He could keep wondering how I did it, keep getting irritated, as they undoubtedly considered humans primitive and barbaric. 

How many beatings will it take for them to learn? I mused to myself. 

I felt the jet engines slow as the shuttle slowed and flew a circle around the arcology before it closed in on the landing pad, where the anti-grave propulsors came to life, and the aircraft slowly settled down. Airlocks hissed, and the doors behind us opened up, which I took as my cue to rise to my feet. “Come on, it’s barebones as of yet, but I’m sure it’ll be interesting nonetheless even for someone who’d seen as much as you.”

I led the way out in an attempt to calm their nerves, as I could tell most of them were still expecting an ambush or some trickery. Well, that was their job, I supposed, to expect the worst and be prepared for it to protect their charge.

In the distance, I saw our welcoming delegation arranged in a neat line, two figures standing a bit further ahead. One of them was the aging gentleman who now sat in the fancy Mayor’s seat of this arcology, and the other was the overseer.

Closing in, I took a moment to take in my daughter. Individualistic and driven as she was, she still had thick embers of anxiety mixed in with the determined aura coating her like a warm cape. Once, she had the same snow white hair and twinkling green eyes as I, but she’d asked both to be changed on our first meeting, and I happily agreed. Now, she sported a beautiful mane of dark purple hair hanging down to the small of her back and had a pair of amethyst eyes to match them, and for some strange reason, she seemed utterly enamoured by the ‘goth girl’ look.

Where the Mayor next to her wore his peoples elaborate and colourful robes, the only skin showing on him being from the neck up and at his wrists. My daughter had a pair of black jeans shorts on with fishnets worn under them like leggings. On top, she went with a silky black T-shirt with a deep V-cut combined with a cropped jacket. 

“Good to see you again, Rachel,” I said with a smile, and after a moment, I decided not to go in for a quick hug. The girl stood straight like she had a pole shoved up her butt and had a purely professional expression on her face, despite the happy emotions I could feel bouncing around in her heart. “Sorry to drop in like this, but I wanted to show our visitors around a bit. Hope it won’t cause too many problems?”

“It won’t,” Rachel said, not even glancing at the Mayor, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable. “Things have calmed down since the elections, so I don’t think any problems should arise. It’s good to see you too, my Lady.”

I knew she wanted to call me ‘Mother’, but she respected my wishes just like I did hers. Plus, she wanted to remain professional, which was a bit counterintuitive to greeting me with ‘Hi Mom. ’

Smiling brightly, I turned to the Mayor and gave him a nod. It wasn’t that I had anything against him, but the man had done little to earn any respect on my part beyond being mildly capable and having good public speaking skills. My daughters who’d been chosen to be overseers had gone with various different methodologies to get their assigned arcologies on the right track, and Rachel was close to the most … domineering in how she went about it. 

The Mayor was practically hand-fed everything from the moment he won the elections, though not to the point of not being in control anymore, oh no. He was smart though, and quickly realised that Rachel was really good at her job and at his job too, which ended up with him being a sort of a puppet for her. For now. I knew Rachel treated this as getting an inexperienced intern she needed to train for the job over the months, slowly adding more and more responsibility onto his shoulders as he earned it. 

Maybe that was why her arcology was so well run, while others who went with the ‘swim or drown’ method had a tougher time. Well, we’ll see how it all goes. I’m sure Alpha will share around what works and what doesn’t as I asked her to. They’ll all learn in time.