Not many explanations will be given. Read the Culture series for information. I recommend 'Use Of Weapons' or 'The Player Of Games'.
Also, updates will be slow if they ever happen. Writing about the Culture is hard.
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Star Fox: Use Of Weapons
Ch1: dead in the water & permanent house guest
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1534 hours, somewhere in the void
Warning: fuel at 5%
Warning: oxygen at 10%
Life support CRITICAL
Return to a station IMMEDIATELY
Fox slammed his hand down onto a button.
The warning voice clicked off. He sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. He knew he would die out here, light-years away from the glow and life of the Lylat system.
He had no idea where he was. The jump had been made without calibration or calculation. He could see three different stars that MIGHT be the Lylat system, but it was unlikely, and in any case they were mere faint specks in the distance.
He switched off the engines, and lay back into his chair, his mind travelling back to that day... remembering the trail of exhaust her arwing had left as it sailed off into space.
He sighed again. He never though it would drive him to suicide. Although it hadn't been on his mind when he made the jump - that had just been an impulse to run - the thought of dying here, killed by the cold and anoxia, drifting around the lost voids of the galaxy in this powerless metal coffin, seemed almost attractive.
Warning: battery power at 0%. Heaters offline.
Fox unplugged the warning circuit.
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About an hour later, Fox awoke.
He could see his breath in the still air. Though the voice no longer warned him of failing systems, the "Emergency Oxygen" light was blinking. He had run out of time. Emergency reserves only lasted the ten minutes that it would take to land in a docking bay.
He sighed one more time. It sounded like a death rattle. "Krystal, if you can hear me, I never meant it this way..." his voice trailed off. Then he sat up in shock.
A small blue sphere, the size of an egg, had materialized with a POP in the cockpit. It centred itself in Fox's view. "What... what the hell?" Fox stammered.
"What you see is an avatar of myself, the General Contact Unit 'Disproved By Experiment'. I notice your ship is in critical condition. I would like to bring your ship into my port side bay; do you have an objection?" The voice was stilted, obviously coming through a translator.
"N- no," said Fox, feeling a little stunned.
"Thank you." His arwing began to vibrate as it was towed backwards. "May I ask you your name?"
"Fox McCloud," said Fox absently. He wondered if he was dreaming.
As his arwing swung around, Fox gasped. Disproved By Experiment was the largest ship Fox had ever seen. He had thought that the Great Fox was a large ship, but this one was colossal. It was easily a hundred kilometres long. The arwing was being towed by some unknown force into a huge docking bay on the side.
The 'avatar' vanished with another pop.
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Fox slowly climbed out of his arwing. The docking bay was massive. White metal panels covered almost every surface.
"Umm... hello?"
A humanoid form, appearing like it was made of liquid metal, drifted though the doors at the back of the bay.
"Hello, Fox McCloud. Welcome to the 'Disproved By Experiment'. I am a GCU, first class. I am returning to culture space after a Special Circumstances mission." The ship paused. "I would like to communicate with your craft, if I may."
"What do you mean, communicate with it?" Fox looked blank.
A moment of silence ensued. "Oh my!" Exclaimed the silver figure. "I had no idea that you were not of an involved race. Your people are deceptively advanced for your level of contact." The creature seemed a little unsure of what to do next. "I was not aware that your ship lacked a Mind."
Fox felt like he was going insane. "Who the hell are you? What's going on? Who are you with? What are you doing out here in the void?" He burst out.
"Ahh..." the silver figure seemed tentative. "The figure you see is a mere representation; I AM the ship, or at least its Mind. "As for explanations, I am a representative of the Culture, a powerful interstellar civilization. Specifically, I report to Contact, which is more or less our ministry of foreign affairs. The mission I was on was given by Special Circumstances, a branch of Contact which handles... well... special circumstances. A full explanation would fill several large books, so that will have to wait until I dock at Ma'saq Orbital.
"Now, I've told you my story, what about you? How did you come to be floating in a cold, dying ship light-years from your home planet?"
"I... I'd rather not talk about it," said Fox. The ship hesitated for a long while. Then it said, "would... would you object if I read the information from your mind, then?" It asked, as if it had mentioned something unthinkable.
"Go ahead," said Fox, apathetically. The ship seemed shocked at his uncaring attitude, but said nothing.
Fox heard a hum resonate throughout the ship. A minute later, the ship spoke.
"You have had an interesting life, Fox McCloud," it said. "You are also a very... unique... fighter. I wonder..." the voice trailed off.
"You wonder what?" Said Fox suspiciously.
"It seems to me that you could be... useful to Contact. You might make an excellent Special Circumstances agent. Trust me when I say that such posts aren't given out lightly."
"What makes me so useful, then?" Fox was feeling bitter.
"Well, you disappeared without a trace from your homeworld, you aren't being searched for, and you have no life to return to. From the point of view of the involved civilizations, you don't exist. That is a useful trait in an SC agent. And no-one need tell you that you are one hell of a solo operative, in stealth missions or otherwise. Special Circumstances missions will be substantially different from what you are used to, but I think you will manage.
"What I am offering you is a new life, Fox. You will be a citizen of the Culture. We are a post-scarcity society, Fox... we live quite well. In theory our technology allows someone to live forever, but most Culture citizens let themselves die after four hundred years or so. Now, most Culture citizens don't go on missions for SC, but I somehow doubt that you would be happy living a purely hedonistic life."
Fox though about it for a minute. "Would I get to pilot my own ships? Or would I have some computer mind doing all the work for me?"
"Special Circumstances only comes into play when something must be done that can't be done by a Mind. So yes."
An image of Krystal flashed across his mind. He instantly suppressed it; he knew he would never see her again even if he returned to Lylat.
"I'm in."
"Excellent. We will be arriving at Ma'saq orbital in four days. Unfortunately, due to the nature of my mission, there are no biological sentients on board, but feel free to peruse the computers for information about your new people."
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Kursed washed the blood from her hands. When she was done, she sat down heavily on her bed. She stared at the news post, still scrolling across her computer screen. It read "STAR FOX CAPTAIN MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEARS!"
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was so hopeful that they would cross paths one day and she would be able to tell him how she felt, so she could stop living this life of murder and deceit.
But now, it seemed, he was gone forever.
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/storyteller: Well, looks like Fox has gotten into the 'moral interference' business.
Yes, I changed the title. I am planning to make the plot similar to Banks' original Use Of Weapons, hopefully without the gut-wrenching ending and horrifically cruel and sad back story; hence the title change.
Edit2: What the hell, FF? REMOVING THE PARAGRAPH SPACING when I upload? So much for .odt format being the biz. It's back to .txt for me.