This is going to be an on-going dark science-fiction project for a pairing that needs more love. It'll probably take a while to get into it because of the amount of world building and plot establishment that I need to get through. I'm going to try and make it as realistic as possible (with the exception of faster-than light-travel), but there will be little breaks in reality in order to progress the plot. Please read and review with your thoughts on what I could improve, I would really appreciate it! (The rating might change as this goes along, and depending if demand for explicit smut is high enough OTL )
The Interspacial Congress was not one of Gilbert's favourite places to be on any given day. It was stuffy and serious and the political correctness made him want to stab something. The Congress itself was set in neutral space, in a station that seemed to recall 22nd century architecture in a particularly garish way. Glancing at it through the window of his flagship, the albino's eyes narrowed in distaste, and his tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth.
"What time is it?" He asked his king, who looked thoroughly unimpressed with the whole thing. Due to the nature of the massive expanse of space, the nations and their bosses only met up once every ten years or so. Time meant nothing to the immortal beings, and these days the international community generally tried to keep out of each-other's hair. It was only fifty years ago that Alfred and Ivan had completely destroyed multiple systems in a territory dispute. Hell, two million men and women had died in a single catastrophic incident where someone miscalculated a FTL Jump and an entire fleet ended up crashing into the side of a planet.
"It's time. We don't want to be late." Gilbert didn't like his new king. The man was too cold, even for the militaristic image the albino had gently cultivated since the rebirth of the Prussian Empire. Kings were not meant to be frozen images of cruelty; they were supposed to be regal fatherly figures that inspired pride and awe in equal amounts. The representative of Prussia scowled, but nodded, turning to the airlock and nodding to the technician working. The doors slid open with a cool hiss and the two men walked through, flanked by numerous officers, all dressed in matching black and all striding in step, their plated boots loud against the floor. The centrifugal force of the station meant that they did not have to activate the in-built magnetic system, which made things considerably easier.
Before he entered the hall in which the other nations and their bosses were undoubtedly waiting, Gilbert brushed some imaginary lint off his own uniform, which was as staunchly black as his officers'. Black and slightly lighter black made his own appearance more shocking, his bright red – subtly augmented with near-invisible mechanics – eyes narrowing as the impressive doors slid open. With a click of his heel against the floor, they strode in with synchronised movements, chins high in pride and expressions drawn into practiced neutrality. They were cold and powerful and intimidating, and were blatantly in control of the situation.
The room immediately hushed upon his entrance, all eyes immediately drawn to the men as they strode in unison, soon finding their places around the massive table. In the past the table had been made out of a particular kind of wood known for its strength and the fact it was as clear as glass. It wasn't very durable, though, necessitating a new one nearly every meeting. It had soon proven unsustainable, and the organisers – humans, currently without a representation – simply gave up and defaulted to a generic manufactured material that would last hundreds of years, even in the vacuum of space. It would need that durability, given the amount of abuse the tables went through – from slammed fists to all-out brawls between international delegates.
"Is everyone here, or are we do expect more... arrivals?" It was Arthur that spoke from the front of the room, his own leader and entourage eyeing up the Prussians nervously, along with the rest of the room. It was such a shame Arthur had been neutered by internal conflict and strife, the many worlds under his belt trying to throw their weight around and the Irish and Scottish alike making breaks for freedom. He might have been a decent ally of Gilbert's, but he wasn't about to associate himself with an empire that could only barely keep himself together. He had his own issues, after all.
"Hellenes isn't planning on coming, so don't worry about them," the French Republic said from across the room, barely glancing up from his tablet, a long lock of blond hair tucked behind his ear. Greece, upon reaching the stars seemed to destabilise, ancient grudges long-forgotten nearly ripping the nation and the man himself apart. Each year that passed seemed to reveal a new power struggle and a new government, leading to a new personality. It was better – and easier – to simply refer to him as 'them'.
"When have they ever come?" Gilbert asked with a snort, crossing one leg over the other. The rest of the room looked at him nervously, including his leader.
Arthur rolled his eyes, ignoring the tension that was almost palpable. "Any others?" Across the table the American Federation was practically shaking with pent-up energy. These days he was no longer one of the youngest states, but he still seemed to wear a youthful exuberance that was a thin veneer over his dangerous enthusiasm for political machinations. A long time ago, Gilbert remembered reading a book that immediately came to mind upon considering Alfred's nature: His eyes were full of money.
There was a long moment of silence as the assembled nations glanced around, the German Union's blue eyes softer than they had been in a long time. Such a shame.
"...America, I do believe you were the one to summon us?" The rest of the nations nodded, and Prussia's king glanced at him questioningly. He gave a short, clipped smile back. Arthur managed to step off the little podium before the blond barged his way up there with quick strides. Gilbert had actually forgotten how imposing he could be, the too-earnest grin sending shudders down his spine. Apparently the Briton shared his feelings, green eyes cast downwards and his legendary eyebrows furrowed in bitter anger. Ah, how it must feel to be buried under the greatness of one's former subject.
Hypocrite, a section of his mind told him. He ignored it.
"So," the American started, waving a hand to flick off the lights and turn on the holographic projection that dominated the centre of the table, washing the room with an empty, soft blue light. Red eyes did a quick scan of the other faces assembled there; Russia and China were looking vaguely interested, the Vatican looked thoroughly unimpressed. Poland was there, surprisingly, sitting to the right of Switzerland, who was next to a nation Gilbert recognised to be Palestine. Wasn't he still at war with Israel? Probably. His attention was redrawn to the projection, though, as Alfred began to speak.
"I'm assuming you're all familiar with our own galaxy, yeah?" He laughed, a delightful sound. The rest of the room was silent as they waited for him to continue. Rolling his eyes, the blond flicked his fingers and the blue light turned black, and the three dimensional image of the Milky Way sat gently turning in it's own little simulated space.
"Now, we've been spreadin' throughout the Milky Way for 'bout four hundred years now, and despite our calculations we've been the only thing here, 'sides microbial populations and the Europian sealife."
There was the unique sound of dozens of eyebrows being quirked upwards simultaneously.
"...Don't give me that look! The reason why my government and I have brought you all here is that we might have found something." The blond spread his fingers and tapped the air, and the image of the galaxy zoomed back and out, until it was just a little figment in the black sea of space.
"About a year ago, one of my outposts heard, uh, something." Little representations of sound – perhaps radio? – waves manifested out of the area around the galaxy. "...Outpost 85-Beta-Sigma, precisely." That would explain it. For the past three hundred years that particular outpost had been beaming signals into the expanse of space, and there had been a controversy just a while back about the fact the Americans had been doing experiments into communication and tracking during FTL jumps using the base. Russia's eyes, in particular, narrowed.
"...And what did you hear?" Ivan asked quietly and too-gently, drumming his fingers on the table a bit too loud for comfort. "How do you know it wasn't background radiation, or...?" The implication was clear, and it was not subtle how many of the other nations leaned forward to hear the answer, their eyes trained on Alfred's face. Not everyone was happy with being spied upon
Alfred frowned. "It is... well-known that Outpost 85 is on the very outskirts of our galaxy, and is the most remote outposts there is." As he spoke, the projection zoomed in on the location of the station, showing mostly-meaningless statistics about its existence in general. "The transmission that we received came from outside the human sphere of radioactive projections. And the signature is old. Very old." He straightened his back. "The quality has degraded to the point that it took months and a freak review to realise it wasn't just background echoes. For reference-" Alfred waved his hand and brought up a visualisation of the sound of a supernova. "This was produced about ten million years ago, but we can still see the tell-tale signature, right?" He flicked his wrist, and a different sound was shown, the line and colours that made up the graph-like picture nearly invisible.
"I don't see what you're getting at. It's likely it's just a quasar, or something," Arthur piped in.
"Shut up," came the reply from Gilbert, earning a glare from both the Briton and his own king. "I want to know where he's going with this."
The American huffed visibly and nodded. "Thank you. We didn't know what we were seeing until we decided to analyse it. It's a pretty weird transmission, isn't it? That's what we thought, so we ran it through a couple filters to try and clean it up. You might want to prepare yourselves," he said with a laugh, pressing a finger into the holographic projection.
There was a moment of confused silence, and Arthur's mouth opened to complain before it started. It could barely be considered a sound, being more like a force and a drill slamming right into one's skull. To say it would be loud was an understatement, the human delegates seemingly crumpling in on themselves and the nations struggling to maintain composure. It seemed to taper off before returning at full force, and then repeating, the noise itself an assault on the mind and body. It was abruptly turned off by Alfred, who was visibly sweating and trembling ever-so-slightly, his hands nervously knitting together.
"Uh, sorry about tha-" He didn't even have a chance to apologise before the assembled nations and their delegates exploded into accusatory screaming and fist-pounding, the poor table being abused once more.
It took a good few minutes for the room to calm down, all the while Gilbert sat back and exhaled through clenched teeth.
"...Thank you," Alfred continued after everyone had settled into a begrudging silence. "As you could hear, the signal was a repeating transmission of high pitch and volume. We have come to theorise this was an SOS message. As I said before, the transmission itself is old. We're talking 'the verge of the observable universe' old. We're certain it's come from the Sloan Great Wall-"
"Are you saying it's over a billion years old?" came the incredulous cry from Ivan, who's own delegates were whispering among themselves hurriedly.
Alfred nodded, and continued. "We've been developing new technologies over the past few decades, which has allowed us to narrow in on where the transmission came from, to a few systems within one of the closer Galactic Clusters. It's incredibly unlikely that the chances would ever come to us to experience this. The odds just don't come around, statistically, ever. Which brings me to the reason why I've gathered you all here;
"My government and I propose an expedition to these systems, in a joint venture for the betterment of the human species. The price will be high for all involved, of course, as we're expecting the initial expedition to last for at least ten years, and the price for all involved will, unfortunately, likely run into the thousands of trillions. But all of this is, in our opinion, a small matter when one considers that this is the closest thing to extraterrestrial intelligent life humanity has ever experienced.
"We are putting this proposal forward with the hope that we can put aside old grudges and assume nothing else but the title of Earthborn for the duration of this venture."
Alfred finally stopped speaking and stepped back, looking expectantly about the room, which was consumed in an unbearably loud silence, several mouths hanging open in disbelief. They seemed to be in shock.
"...Nobody?" Alfred's voice was a callback to the anxious and scared rebellious boy Gilbert had once hardened with sweat and steel in a time long forgotten. The silence was a resounding answer to his proposal, and the man's face hardened defensively.
"Alright. Is there anything else someone would like to discuss?" With a dismissive wave of his hand, the holographic display flickering out and the lights returning to illuminate the room. There was silence once more before Japan, previously sitting quietly in the corner of the room, along with his dual emperor-prime minister, raised his hand.
"I would like to discuss some things, Mister America."
The rest of the meeting was like that, tensions so strained you could cut it with a harsh exhale, attention returning to the American assembly when the speaker paused for too long. Perhaps it had simply been too soon to introduce the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life to a group of people that had long-lost the dream of life beyond the stars. The fish Europa were hardly intelligent or highly evolved, after all.
However, Gilbert was intrigued. Since the German Succession, he had very few systems to call his own, the vast majority of his population inhabiting great ships that both acted as mobile cities and fortresses against any and all foes. The 'Prussian Empire' was smaller than even the Baltic Union, but his massive fleet easily matched Alfred's own, if not surpassed it in both strength and number.
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far. Hadn't one of Alfred's bosses once said that?
These days the galaxy was crowded, not in population but in the idea that in the early spacefaring days the new Faster Than Light capabilities allowed those capable to swallow up vast swathes of space extremely quickly. Many former-African nations didn't seem to understand the irony. Those that broke away afterwards, such as Gilbert himself, had to struggle for space and their right to exist. With his many fleets and political isolation, perhaps it would be advantageous to investigate the options available to him.
When he presented this to his boss, however, he was immediately met with resistance.
"Why would you even think about that?" His boss was grey-haired and deep-faced, his eyes crinkling as he squinted. It was a rather unpleasant look.
"Our armside has been secured since the alliance with-" Ludwig. "The German Union. And to our centerside we have Hungary, no?" Ludwig had taken the brunt of the Secession, a great deal of his spaceborne population determined in forming their own state – one way or another.
"We can't give up that much time or that many people and ships, you know this." The words were barely hissed, so the others could not hear their discussion.
"The GU won't initiate anything, and we do not have anything to offer Hungary. And a decade is nothing to us, you know this." The king's expression soured at the cocky smirk his nation wore.
"I will... Think about it."
Gilbert resisted the snarky reply that immediately came to mind and simply nodded, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, one ankle placed atop the other knee casually.
The title of 'Earthborn' was not an unattractive one, after all.
References!
- "His eyes were full of money.": The Great Gatsby
-"Europian sealife": It is believed that Jupiter's moon Europa is likely to hold life.
-"Speak softly and carry a big stick": original quote by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt