Colony Corps

You navigate down to "Field Engineering for Dum-Dums" and feels like a months worth of reading a large print text in headache form fills your think-pan. Are you reading or more remembering? Either way, you're not sure what's up with that but you feel all the more able to field strip a rifle, fix a carburetor, and figure out the tensile strength of a manufactured bridge. Good on you. Your basic competency went up.

Well! Might as well have the MiniOM handy while you head on outside, Olivier is getting up to check on the situation and Dividi seems to have some concerns but it is a little hard to tell. You navigate through a few unintuitive menus to get to the "FOR YOU!" page. Cellog was kind enough to both upload some local data as well as dig out and bookmark various "useful(?)" documents.

You'll be heading outside either way, probably to be joined by everyone else once they're all geared up, but you might as well check on something.

>Submit Commands Directly.

A completely understandable tone of voice to take regarding the current situation. The voices in your head are proud. Though thankfully it doesn't take long to regain your composure, and Slim his.

SLIM: Would love to keep goin' man but after crestin' a steep hill and listening to all your commotion, kinda had to step on the breaks. Not calling anything ominous or nothin...

SLIM:But it sure is spooky.

2/2

The colonial infrastructure is wrecked, possibly from disuse, or intentional sabotage? Either way it is a long way down, and likely a little too long for even your ability to tuck and roll to account for and counter.

Time to consider your options.

And as always you can...

>Submit Commands Directly.

Good call. Once you manage to straighten out the knotted column of vertebra you have masquerading as a spine, you mutter a quiet "thanks" to yourself under your breath.

You can already see Slim in the driver's compartment. You think of the most tactful thing you can say...

I guess that's why she's whatever rank she is then. Colonel? Captain? This wouldn't be the first/fifth time you've been concussed though at the very least this time it wasn't the fault of your actions. Not wearing a seatbelt is decidedly an action you didn't take after all. And who was to predict Slim would just slam on the breaks in this Slugmeister Colonial Utility Transport Vehicle.

Hear you loud and clear! The most auspicious of laudes that can come into one's possession, rivaling a Stone Eagle, or Ten-Punched Utilities Subservience Card. A beautiful "Gold Star".

You do not posses any stickers of that kind or think that's a real thing, But it is the thought that counts nonetheless. Its been a long time coming. You can hope to one day be worthy of your own glittery golden mark of honor.

Olivier does appreciate it. Dividi is saying things. And Slim just sent this vehicle into a screeching halt. About time we check out what's going on.

you say, after what feels like a long time lost in thought. What was Slim saying? Talkin' someone down from somewhere?

HOLY MOLY! So that's where they were. An unpleasant surprise but probably the only surprise you have to worry abou-

The trundling rumbling vehicle comes to a screaming halt. The change in momentum sends you flying out of your seat, Dividi tumbling into the truck, all this leading to...

Some ridiculous bullshit.

>{SUBMIT COMMANDS]

That's an interesting question. You'd be tempted to try and check but right this moment isn't the best time, and for a couple of reasons. Reason A) It'd be inappropriate and uncomfortable to do that without privacy, and Olivier is sitting right there.

Reason 2) You're on the job and you will probably be on the job for quite a while. And figuring out key aspects of your identity during company time or an active firefight is broadly looked down upon.

But yes... what you said/thought; the world may never know.

Olivier is talking to you. So was Slim earlier too. What was it he was asking about? You were so consumed with big heady questions like "What does 'self-insertable' even mean?" and consequentially "How perfect are you at being that really? And the ramifications thereof." or even "Could horseshoe crabs wear tiny horseshoes?" perhaps also, "Where is your-"

>[SUBMIT COMMANDS]

The truck seems to be clearing the canyon walls and beginning to ascend a trail. The looks like it'll get quite a bit bumpier moving forward. Sun-bleached desert stretches towards the horizon, the blue-green sky pale and cloudless. shadows of surrounding cliff faces and rock formations provide tenuous shelter from the heat. As the longitude increases, the drier it gets it seems.

You almost feel like indulging in some sunspot poetry when you hear a knock from the cab in front of you.

Olivier proceeds to hand you something. A data cassette, and it is from Cellog. How considerate. You'll have to give it a look in the MiniOM.

>[CHECK INVENTORY]

You'll just pop that over in here.

>[SUBMIT COMMANDS]

...Should what work like what now? Five more minutes...

Uh Carver?

...But, smart? You really think so? T-thank yo-

THUMP!

Soft bumps of the transport that has been loaned to you jostle you awake. I mean, that and Olivier checking on you. You are currently en route to the [reservoir], to secure the strategic resource codenamed: TOAST. You've probably got the documents somewhere, and Olivier and Slim are probably well-versed on the contents.... Okay, Olivier at least for sure. Did Dividi come along? Would that have been a thing you'd push for?

Oh! Olivier is also sitting across from you. Want to talk? The whole world of conversation and action and inaction are your oysters for the picking!

>[SUBMIT COMMANDS]

TALK, DO, FIGHT, EAT, GRAB, USE! There's no limit but your imagination, skill, competence, and number of thoughts floating in your head.

>[CHECK INVENTORY]

Review the contents of your inventory. In case you need inspiration. Or want to look at what you've got.

>[REFLECT ON THE PAST]

FY 0340: After seven long years, of cross referencing, double checking, and debating, Humans translate the first ever message  from alien species. And the third truth was revealed.

The universe is not friendly. An ultimatum. And so begi-

"Yadda yadda yadda. We don't got time to slog our way through the rest of this. You're goin' nap-zone now." ...but I just woke up...

"Nah you're goin' to sleep. Don't want to get you too out of sync."

-e're almo-

...I don't want to...

"What was that?"

...I want to...

||FY 0333: The first strides in cassette technology are made. And but all the while in the surrounding years humanity struggles with wars against itself and the proliferation of nuclear technology. 

Little did we know; that all this time humankind had been broadcasting unknowingly out into the stars with signals both internal and external, had finally caught the attention of minds more foreign than we ever were to each other.

A few unknowing stumbles out into the infinite black calling out for help, were met with a response.

On the eve human kind’s destruction of itself by its own hands, a technician discovers a message that was beamed directly at Earth. The necessary project of translating it takes place at a furious pace...||

It's getting hard to focus...

"Yeah. that's rough, buddy. Lot of heavy stuff. Ugh we might wrap this up early... Gotta get you back to 'bed' or whatever."

Carver?

Time moves ever onward before settling on a scene; a human, a pen, the distant muttering song of far flung stars, and the metal rabbit ears that hear it.

||FY 0285: The development of sensory equipment reveals a variety of signals from across the stars. Radio signals, gamma rays, tachyon bursts in time. And among all that tedious and random noise there were are communications rather than the delirious sputterings of dying stars and cosmic gurgling of black holes.

Thus begins the long worthwhile/less project of translation. This would be the foundation of the Second Truth; “Humans were truly not alone in the universe.”||

"What good that did us! Am I right? I'm right. You don't have to respond."

...spoilers?...

"Yeah, yeah whatever. When's that turd getting here?"

...break from what?...

||FY 0224: Humanity's first computer is created, The Lovelace Device, a towering achievment of theory and industry. Dazzling mandkind with the near limitless potential of adding numbers to other numbers to get yet bigger numbers. Further upgrades allow it to take numbers away thereby getting smaller numbers. Multiply them. Divide them. The ability to compute decimals and negatives are introduced to ensure fewer breakdowns-

I-I don't get this. What's so funny about this?...

Shut up, idiot! It's coming up now. Just give it a sec-

||FY 0226: The Lovelace Device explodes horrendously due to human error.

PffFFFffFffFFFFT-HA!HahahaAHAHaAhahaHAAaahhaa! Losers.

...I still don't get it...

||A careless zero placement by a novice mathsineer causes cascading mechanical failure. In time it would be rebuilt, but a safer medium than brass and steam and gears becomes a priority in computational sciences.||

UGH! Okay, more boring crap. Get to the other "Truths" already. I don't wanna play babysitter here all day.

"You of all people don't need this part of history. Doesn't really apply to someone like you."

What does that mean? What do you mean by that?

"NO, WAIT! THIS NEXT PART IS FUNNY!"

All of human history begins to slow down as it crawls to a stop in some smoke choked industrial hellscape and zooms in on one building in particular. Though maybe it is not a building? Maybe its...

Yes.

Yes, you guess that is a word for it.

In what would be called Future Year 0, humanity discovers moons orbiting Jupiter. Confirming a hypothesis from 100 years prior that the Earth orbits around the sun, rather than the other way around. Though it will take several centuries for it to be appreciated properly, this cements what would come to be known as the First Truth; The Earth is not the center of the universe. Where once humans were thought to be solely constrained to their finite home by divine providence, they now realize that there is an infinity of worlds to discover. It would take time to truly appreciate it, that there was better things to fight over than the mere dirt under our feet. This seems like startlingly obvious stuff. Hard to believe though that humans knew that the stars were their destiny even way back then huh? You think to yourself. Or rather you're told to think to yourself, since, y'know, you just watched a segment of the video on it. Later in this chapter we will discuss the pedants in FY413 who think we should've put FY0 to 101 earlier or that the Great State Calendar Epoch Change was completely unnecessary and has made historical cataloguing needlessly complicated.

The voices

They are sad losers whom no one would honestly consider being friends with and sympathize with aliens probably. Also they smell funny and no one invites them to parties.

"UGH!"

You can hear the dissatisfaction dripping off the voice's tongue. The weary sigh and gutteral grunt of someone who's above this sort of grunt work.

Oh, that all sounds very important, and some good things to keep an eye out for insofar as NOTES are involved. The loading bar fills up and the intro begins to play and you see the Badge of the STATE. Is it a bird? Is it a bridge?

Oh yes. You remember this, don't you? You remember watching this? Oh, it is all very inspiring. Very patriotic. The early history of the State... Hm... When did you watch this Carver? Do you remember when? I || "The Family Learning Corporation Presents On Behalf of the State: Human STATE History, Part One: Future Years 0000-0340. Please Take Out Your Copybooks and Pencils now."||

You were about to panic but the required materials fell right into your lap. Time to absorb some information like the sponge you are. || "The course of Human History was reshaped drastically in the closing years of the terrestrial period. As we extend beyond the welcoming wet bosom of Father SOL and tight warm embrace of Mother EARTH, into the stars and the spaces in between, we must carry the lessons of history forward. In this unit we will cover...

Future Year 0000 through to 0340.

The First Three of the Four Truths.

The First Colony.

Our Seeds of Our Technological Ascent. "||