== Part 31 – Class Discussion ==

"Inbound Lyran Dropships have cut acceleration and are starting turnover," Nine announced. "Estimate thirty minutes before deceleration begins, plus/minus thirty second."

"Thirty minutes?" Eight said, confused. "Why so long? These dropships can turn way faster than that."

"Probably to minimize centripetal forces on the passengers so that they pretty much feel nothing," Four suggested. "The Monarch class is one of the few Dropship designs in the Inner Sphere that is exclusively used by civilians with no military variants at all. Any operator of one isn't going to want loose objects – or worse, people – thrown around with deadly force just because the Dropship turned around too fast.

"Also, freefall sex is fun! Thirty minutes is just enough time for a quick orgy, especially if you've prepared in advance," Six added. The others looked at her. "You all know I'm right. From personal experience as I recall."

"I don't think Lyrans actually do that," Seven said doubtfully.

"Oh, please, they're aristocrats," Six said dismissively. "I don't care what human upper classes call themselves, their rich and powerful will always include people whose personal pleasures deviate from public social norms and use their wealth and privilege to both practice them and hide them from the public." She arched her back and ran her hands down her shapely body. "We Cylons on the other hand are totally egalitarian and totally honest about our kinks."

"Thank God for that," One said softly as he watched Six pose. He shook himself, as if waking up from a pleasant dream. "Right, back to business," he said more firmly. "Four, what were you saying about the new armor again?"

"Our basestars can't grow it," Four told them. "We've tried splicing in the genetic programming we acquired from Bergstrom into our own biotech so we can grow BAR 10 armor on our basestars like we do our current armor. But no matter how different ways we've tried, the end result is a spongy mess that's less damage resistant than what we're already using."

"How's that possible?" Three asked. "I was under the impression that our biotech was far better than the Inner Sphere's."

"Armor wants to be wet!" Nine cried. "It doesn't like being dry!"

"That's more or less the case," Four confirmed. "Inner Sphere biotech manufacturing is 'wet', which is to say it has to be done in carefully controlled environmental conditions or you'll get a ruined product. Our biotech is for the most part 'dry', which is to say it can be done in open air conditions or even vacuum without any special care needed to shield the product from random environment hazards."

"But that's what makes our biotech superior," Three pointed out.

"And the genetic codes for making BAR 10 armor were designed for wet biotech manufacturing," Four told her. "What's more, creating BAR 10 armor is a multi-step process using different bacteria with different genetic programming for each step, and these bacteria do not play well with each other. The carbon crystal mesh is one step. The steel coating for the mesh is another step. And the boron nitride backing is yet another step. And then there's the radiation treatments to prevent overgrowth from ruining the microstructures.

"The problem for our dry biotech manufacturing is that it can only do all these steps at the same time if we want our basestars to grow the armor like skin," Four continued. "Every time we tried to get just the crystal mesh and steel coating to work together, the end result was always a malformed mesh, the steel microstructures not forming correctly, and usually both. Trying to sync all the cells that produce the armor – which may I remind you all are all stationary – to swap between producing carbon crystal and steel and nothing at all with enough precision and coordination to create the proper microstructures has been an exercise in futility. And that was for test runs of one square meter of plate, not the entire surface area of a basestar. We haven't even tried to code in alternating between the carbon crystal reinforced steel layers and boron nitride layers yet, but it looks like the cell coordination issues will only get exponentially worse if we try to get the armor producing cells to try to make a fourth material."

"So... what? Are you saying we're stuck with basestars that have crappy armor?" Two asked.

"The basestar can wear clothes!" Nine suggested.

"More or less correct," Four agreed. "If we want our basestars to have BAR 10 armor – hell, if we want anything we make to have BAR 10 armor – we're going to have to make it the Inner Sphere way in a factory and apply it externally, just like the Inner Sphere does. And I'll point out that many of the other materials we're having trouble duplicating may have to be done the same way."

"That's going to be much slower and more labor intensive than our current dry biotech manufacturing methods," Five said quietly. "A basestar could carry a small factory for outfitting Raiders and Centurions, but it won't be able to outfit itself or any other basestar in any reasonable time period unless it specializes to the point that making armor is all it can do. It wouldn't be a basestar anymore then, it'd be more like a... a... factorystar or something."

"Factorystar?" Eight giggled. "You just made that word up just now, didn't you?"

"Or you could have multiple basestars with small factories in them produce armor for just one basestar," One said thoughtfully. He grunted in annoyance. "But that'd still mean most Basestars would go without the armor for a while while only a few would have it. I don't like either setup. It leads to a degree of specialization that we made our current basestar designs to get away from."

"But our basestars still specialize," Three pointed out.

"No, our basestars are all general purpose models," One argued back. "We may task each one with a specialized job, like us being sent out here to scout the Thirteenth Colony, but fundamentally our basestars are designed to be jack of all trades to the point that we could totally rebuild our entire race if all but one gets wiped out somehow. We did that because all Cylons are supposed to be equal with each other.

"But what Five is proposing that we create a... a military industrial complex," One continued, searching for the right terms. "A segregation among Cylons where some basestars produce armor and maybe other things, and other basestars take those things and use them but for the most part don't make it themselves. And we've all seen where that leads because we only have to look at humanity, Twelve Colonies and Inner Sphere alike. We're basically debating introducing a class system into Cylon society if we start specializing basestars to the point where they're no longer self sufficient. And I don't want that."

"I agree," Seven added quietly. "I don't want that either."

"You two agreeing on a matter of philosophy?" Eight said in surprise. "Did the apocalypse just happen and I missed it?"

"That... may be inevitable," Zero said heavily, finally weighing in on the conversation. The others looked at the Centurion. Since the decision was made to upgrade the voting system, we Zeros have been spending our spare time considering how the new Constellation system would operate in practice. One of the likely end results is that the Constellations will specialize simply to adapt to local conditions. Constellations operating in the Periphery will focus on pirate hunting and policing. Constellations operating in the Inner Sphere must stand ready to battle actual military forces while perhaps as Gustav Argyle has suggested, working to monopolize the Jumpship network. And it is not only logical that the basestars will be adapted to meet local problems, it will be a necessity."

There was a moment of silence as each of the Cylon models digested Zero's words.

"We're going to have to debate this one long and hard before making a decision," Two said finally. "I don't feel we can even make a preliminary vote for all of our people like we did with the voting system and making Nine."

Murmurs of agreement came from the other Cylons.

"Emergence signature! Sun-Langhorne Jump Point!" Nine announced, breaking the mood. "Merchant class with one Leopard class Dropship."

The Cylons were instantly on alert. According to the Argyles and the literature in the Comstar library, no one used jump points that deep in the system unless they were intending to attack someone because of how risky using them was. Such jump points deep in a gravity well were colloquially known as "pirate points" for a reason, and there was only one place worth attacking in the whole system.

"Oh thank God," Three murmured. "Something simple to deal with."

"Leopard separating from Merchant and beginning system transit," Nine continued. "ETA Langhorne, eight hours two minutes plus/minus seventeen minutes depending on approach vector and chosen landing zone."

"Obviously, they're going to attack Langhorne," One said as if he was tasting something he really didn't like. He snorted in annoyance. "We should do something about that."

"You want to protect humans?" Six said, surprised.

"No," One growled. "But we're investing a lot into this stupid planet and we shouldn't let a bunch of pirates screw with it. Especially since we haven't even gotten any return yet."

"Comstar Observatory has raised alarm," Nine announced.

"You know," Seven thoughtfully, "these might not be pirates. They could just be merchants trying to shave off some travel time."

"Wanna bet?" One replied.

"Langhorne militia and Rick's Ravagers have begun personnel recall in preparation for defensive deployment." Nine added.

"Well, no," Seven admitted. "But we have eight hours until they get here, so we might as well hail them and find out what they want."

"Very well," Zero agreed. It stepped up to the control pedestal and dipped a pointy finger in. Atop the basestar, an antenna dish swung around and pointed towards the local sun, and began transmitting a tight beam message. "LEOPARD DROPSHIP. THE PLANET LANGHORNE IS UNDER CYLON PROTECTION. IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND YOUR PURPOSE."

The Cylons waited long minutes for the radio message to reach out to the incoming Dropship. Then they had to wait many minutes more for the Dropship's crew to listen to the message and decide what to do. And then they had to wait more minutes before they could even see or hear the response.

"Maybe we should have sent a Raider or something out there to act as a comm relay?" Eight suggested after more than enough time had passed for them to see a response, but the Leopard had done nothing so far but keep accelerating towards Langhorne. "This whole waiting for the speed of light kinda blows."

"Wait, something's happening," Seven said.

"Leopard has cut acceleration and begun turnover," Nine announced. "Estimate twenty seconds before deceleration burn begins."

The Cylons stood in shock for a moment before someone started laughing. The laugh was infectious and quickly spread to the rest. The Leopard was running back to its jumpship!

"So, uh, should we go after them?" Eight asked.


Adept Hoff's eyes narrowed as the Cylon basestar reappeared on the Observatory's displays. Accounting for speed of light delays, the Cylons had jumped directly from Langhorne orbit to next to the Jumpship that had brought the raid he had secretly arranged for. It was annoying that the raiders had sought to flee the instant they realized the basestar was there, but Hoff hadn't really expected them to accomplish much anyway in the face of even a primitive Warship.

What Hoff really wanted to see was what the Cylons would do if someone tried to raid Langhorne. And if this was the Cylon's response to any and every raid on Langhorne, that might make them... predictable.