“What?”

  “The planets each have their own governments for the most part, save for a few, like our core world, the Empire's New Babylon, or the Aliiance's EXO-ONE, they aren't really part of any faction. The reason for this is... kindof awful, but depending on wartime conditions, the 'ownership' of a planets orbitals pretty much devolves to whoever owns the orbitals. Most planets have, as part of their laws, that they will give a certain percentage of their trade good production to whoever owns the orbitals. Essentially they stick it in a shuttle, or orbital elevator, get to high orbit, kick it out the airlock, and save 'have at it, whoever is there.' then go back down. Various things have been tried over the years to make it easier to hold planets, from indoctrinating the populace, to setting up ground based defences, but unless the planet makes something particularly high value... of which there are a few planets, most of the factions just content themselves with taking the orbitals.”

  “So if that's the case, is there any reason to try to take planets?”

  “Other than the tribute? It increases the number of trade goods available, which makes everyone happier, brings prices down, overall improves economic conditions.” Joe went on, while bait rolled her eyes. “Once a trader always a trader. Always thinking of made up bullshit like the economy. The best reason to take planets is the influx of new ideas and connecting them to our network. There are a lot more people dirtside than voidborn, and they are the primary source of art, music, movies, games. Culture! And as soon as other factions take over the first thing they do is destroy satellites and relays.”

  “So... you take them over for... media?”

  “Hey don't knock it, when you are out in the black performing a three-day evolution to mine the titanium core of an asteroid and have to stay 'frame-jacked' to a thousand times standard just in case anything goes wrong, you are going to be willing to do damned near ANYTHING to stave off the boredom.” Bait said.

  “I guess if you have 3d printers aboard every ship their physical tribute does not mean much.”

  Joe shrugged. “It's normally given over to the people who participated in taking the planet, at least for the first while, before devolving to the government. Mostly because most of the people who helped take a planet don't stick around. Those that do get to keep collecting their share of the tribute, and that's how garrison forces get started!”

  “Huh, okay, that seems... chaotic but efficient.”

  “I think so. The other factions are much more traditional in how they do things. Imperial conscripts man ships run by nobles, the alliance has a professional and well trained navy, but that's why they also have the smallest fighting force...”

  “Okay... so tell me about the empire and the alliance, you have mentioned a few things that have given me a bit of an idea on what they are about but...”

  “Right... okay let's go in chronological order. The empire emerged sortof out of the first government. They tried to set things up so everyone could get started, but rapidly started grabbing more and more power, granting exclusive land rights to certain families that worked with them, innocent stuff at first, but then they started cracking down, and people started leaving.”

  “At first they tried to stop people, but when 99% of the population is done with your shit, and you're loyalists are mostly landlords with few practical skills other than kicking ass and renting out shitty apartment for massively overinflated fees, you run into some problems actually trying to accomplish anything. So, people fled, and the remaining nobles, because that's what they were even if they didn't call themselves that yet. The remaining nobles searched throgh the archives, because the scientific discoveries made during the exodus were made available to all, stupidly.” Joe said, but Bait wrinkled her nose at this.

  “They discovered a few key technologies, that were relatively easy for them to implement. One, cloning, two, control implants, and three, skill downloads. So... they started cloning themselves, fitting their clones with control collars to ensure obedience, and gave them skill downloads to make them able to cook, clean, maybe do basic maintenance for the clones that turned out smart.”

  “So... most of the population of the empire are these clones?”

  “Yep. And at some point the nobles realized that, as their own organs started failing, they could just replace bits of themselves with their clones. So whenever their organs start to fail they replace it with some poor bastard clone. I've heard they can even transfer their entire nervous system if they need to.”

  “That is... horrible, but damn they must live a long time.”

  “Yep, I've heard that some of the most powerful nobles were alive all they way back when the first ark ships arrived.”

  “How? The human brain starts to degrade before the end of our first century?” I asked.

  “From what we know they have developed certain therapies to retard that... but we don't know. After people left the empire they cracked down on information in and out. We do know that nobles run everything, and the slaves are kept complacent by their control collars, or control implants, which is one of the few technologies to have seen really significant innovation over the years in the empire.”

  “So the empire is a bunch of nobles running around in starships with a bunch of slaves.”

  “Who affect an air of pretentiousness. Social ranking and favor are all they care about, and they hold lavish parties on their massive vessels. A quick route to favor with other nobles is glory in military action, so many nobles will captain vessels in an attempt to conquer worlds and increase their families favor.”

  “They are the most likely of the empire to demand more of the planets in their charge, but they are also really bad at keeping track of what is produced on each planet so from what I have heard from several of the dirtsiders I know is that it's pretty easy to trick them. That being said, if they discover they are being tricked, they are also pretty likely to engage in collective punishment... with orbital weaponry.”

  I sucked my teeth at this.

  “Sounds like planetary populations should try really hard to avoid being conquered by them.”

  “eh... they're also the most likely to help the local's with new industry and such. Your factory isn't producing as much as some of the newer factories your lord has seen and/or has? You are very likely to have a brand new pre-fab factory dropped in an open space in a few months. Population sick and can't work? Expect a bunch of nano-medicine and some auto-doc facilities dropped on your heads. Of all the factions they care the most about making planets productive and healthy.”Bait added.

  “Because a productive planet is a prestigious planet right?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Who cares the least?”

  Both Joe and Bait looked uncomfortable.

  “It's C.O.G.S. Isn't it.”

  “Of the big three... Yeah.” Joe answered.

  “I guess with how independent you all are it's easy to shrug off the issues of any particular planet.”

  Bait looked embarrassed, Joe shrugged.

  “You said of the big three, are there others?”

  “The traders, yeah, I used to be a part of them before I joined C.O.G.S. Technically the second oldest faction after the empire, but they don't claim any land. Just pure capitalism. They run a lot of the trade between planets, and they maintain licenses and truce's with each of the factions so that they can trade between them. They are in fact the only ships allowed to trade directly between empires. As I said, they are hyper capitalist, so if you go to a trader owned station you'll be charged for the air you breathe, docking fee's, fueling fees, power fees, everyone you meet is likely to charge you for your time, even just for browsing their wares so... be careful.”

  “Anyways, the second big faction to form was the alliance. So, we arrived here in the arks, but we weren't the only lifeforms around.”

  “Holy shit, aliens?” I exclaimed.

  “Yep. None particularly advanced but lots of different aliens, some even sentient, some sapient and working their way up the technology tree. The alliance started as a bunch of scientists that wanted to study and investigate them, and some of their discoveries made our... well everyone's heads spin.” Joe exposited.

  “Psychic powers, rapid regeneration, space-time folding... the aliens had a lot of honestly miraculous abilities.” Bait added.

  “Wow... that's super cool.” I said.

  “That's what the scientists said. Then they started wondering what would happen if they spliced some of the aliens biology with our own.” Joe contingued

  “Oh dear... that sounds like it could lead to... bad things.”I replied

  “Results were mixed... there were a lot of cool things that happened, and honestly they kindof exploded with power. More and more people began experimenting with splicing xeno-genetics together and eventually... something snapped.”

  “We're actually not sure if it was the people experimenting on themselves that went crazy, or if they attracted the attention of... something else, but a bunch of ships swept in and began targeting heavily modified populations, wiping them out. The ships are, we think, guided by artificial intelligence. They don't respond to communications at all, and seem to merely attack heavily modified populations, capture people, then leave and replicate.”

  “What's worse, or what was worse at the time, was that their hulls and components could restore themselves, like something partially biological and capable of regeneration. So even if they were able to fight them off, some wreckage would regenerate and start causing issues during the whole rebuilding process. Once they started correlating the rate of xenogenetic recombination with the frequency of attacks, this new set of people became VERY regimented in their views of it. They still used xenogenetic recombination to, well, give themselves superpowers, but it became very restrictive. Everything had to be requested first, then checked and rechecked by the government, then they performed the rcombination, in order to prevent attacks. They even began to regulate who could breed with who to prevent unintended recombination of genes that might draw these 'berserkers ire.'”

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  “Uh.. did it work?”

  “The berzerkers stopped attacking as often sure. We actually think most of the attacks these days are remnants from those first waves that have rebuilt themselves and copied themselves, like a von neuman machine. The first few years of attacks they kept adapting and throwing new stuff at us, but since the alliance started being strict about what is recombined with what there haven't been any focused methodical campaigns.”

  “You think the berzerkers wiped out the gene sequence or what not that they were looking for, and decided that was enough, and the alliance has managed to avoid that particular sequence so far?”

  “Pretty sure of it. The alliance obviously keeps what sequence they think that was a pretty closely guarded secret, but I can understand why. Last thing you want is some doomsday cultist to get a hold of a thing that could call down a world ending force and just, like, randomly ship it to planets to call the berzerkers.”

  “Right... so when did C.O.G.S. Form?”

  “Well, it initially formed from people both in the empire and the alliance, and the traders of course, who inspected the berzerker wrecks and began researching their technology. The alliance pretty quickly banned all research into berzerker tech, along with the empire, since one of the first things we found out about the berzerkers is the reason they don't use shields like everyone else. Their hulls self-heal, and their entire vessel is able to self repair.”

  “Wait, that sounds like what you said about your ships.”

  “On the nose. COGS is composed of people that took that tech and ran with it. It let us build amazingly sophisticated self-sustaining cybernetics, amazing ship tech, and let use run a very independently minded direct democracy. Course they blame us every time a berzerker fleet raids their worlds but...”

  “Wait, you said the empire had people investigating too, does that mean?” I wondered aloud

  “Yep, COGS has former clones from the empire that used berzerker tech to override their control collars. Turns out having slaves investigate tech you don't understand is a really REALLY bad idea.”

  “So, breakdown, Empire is a feudal system run on the backs of cloned slaves, who have massive clone crews on their vessels.”

  “And who use really big guns. Their warships are essentially built around spinal weapons. It used to be spinal railguns but they've really gotten some cool tech revolving around particle accelerator's recently” Bait chimed in, visibly perking up as she started talking about weapons.

  I raised my eyebrow at Joe.

  “She's kindof a gun-nut!”

  “Hey!” Bait exclaimed.

  “It's true!” Joe retorted.

  “The appropriate term is gun bunny! Gun-nut are old men who sit with piles of guns around them, gun bunny's love their guns and look good doing it.” Bait struck a pose and then giggled.

  “... Okay.” I said, blinking rapidly at Bait's giggling form.

  “I just like guns, and gun tech, and shields, and... all the cool things weapons and weapon tech do okay.”

  “You know what fair, I liked to watch youtube videos of the ships launching entire car dealerships worth of munitions downrange in the old world wars, so I can get behind that.” I replied.

  “So... back to the review. Alliance is all about genetic recombination and xeno-genetics, with a really restrictive government.”

  “Technically a technocracy. All their scientists and engineer's compete for the best discoveries and papers, and those who build the most clout get to make the governmental decisions. Generally relating to their specialty, but not always...” Joe added.

  “That sounds like it could be really efficient... but also maybe terrible for the everyman.”

  “It's not that bad I think. Better than a clone slave. But most people are strictly regimented, you are born with certain genetics and a certain career path is expected of you. Diverging is... difficult, and can lead to exile. They don't actually have a death penalty in the alliance, but they also don't have prison for life.”

  “Huh, okay... So what about their non-genetic tech?”

  “They have some of the best drones around!” Bait exclaimd.

  “...Elaborate?” I asked.

  “Well, like I said, through their xenogenetic experiments, they've unlocked certain abilities formerly thought to be supernatural. Telekinesis. Pyrokinesis. Aquakinesis... a lot of kinesis's actually, along with things like psychometry, telepathy.”

  “So psychic powers, I am familiar.” I replied. Looks like my inner nerd was going to be of some help in this world.

  “So the issue with a lot of these abilities, is they are severely range limited from the person using the ability. But they've finagled a way for someone on a ship, piloting a drone, to extend their powers to said drone. So they have drones that can do things that should not be physically possible. Like creating a telekinetic shield without a shield generator, or setting the internals of a ship they pass on fire. It's really cool to hear about until it happens to you, then it just sucks.” Joe said.

  “So they kindof cheat, I would say our drones are better in terms of sophistication, and of course we can produce them on board our own ships so we don't have to go back to base to restock... but a swarm of Alliance drones Vs. an equal numbers of COGS drones will win every day of the week.”

  “That sucks but I understand why... So... since we seem to be on the topic of weapon systems, what does COGS specialize in?

  “Guided weapons!” Bait interjected before Joe could say anything.

  'So, missiles and stuff?”

  “Missiles are just a part of it!” Bait continued.

  “So, we have experimented with plasma as weaponry quite a bit. We found a way to spin an interior ball of plasma into creating a magnetic field, and this magnetic field can contain a shell of plasma that, if spun in set way in relation to the first spin, will contain the interior field for a short time, so you have two spinning sets of plasma containing eachother until their momentum runs dry and they invariably disperse... explosively.”

  “Okay... so you have plasma cannons, that's pretty cool, was a big sci-fi concept back in my day but no-one could figure out any way in which it would be plausible. How does that relate to guided weapons though.”

  “Well, it was figured out that, once you launch this ball of plasma, if you fire a wee little laser at it, it causes a burst of plasma to vent from the outer shell, this causes the plasma to veer off course, you program a computer to pulse laser's at the plasma ball in order to guide it into a target and you get...”

  “Wire guided plasma... That is awesome!”

  “Exactly! So between guided plasma, and missiles that every one of our ship is able to manufacture on board without going back to a base to rearm and resupply, our vessels are kings of long ranged guided warfare.”

  “I think according to the armchair strategists from my day that should make you all kings of space warfare, since it was theorized that guided weapons would be the only real appropriate weapons for space.”

  Bait shook her head.

  “The reality is a lot more complicated. Electronic warfare can make getting a clean track on an enemy at any significant range an exercise in futility, at extreme ranges even the best guided munitions will be thrown off track, or lead into an area where point defense can quickly take them out. Jammers that blanket an area, laser dazzlers, and various forms of chaff or even active countermeasures make engaging at extreme ranges untenable once the enemy knows there are in fact enemies nearby. As an ambush tactic it has some merit though. Most combat takes place at relatively short ranges due to that, either through ambush or with one fleet burning hard towards an objective and another waiting for them. Long range guided fire is exchanged, but is ineffective until you reach a point where you can burn through all the jamming. Most combat takes place at under 10 Km, with guided missiles and munitions being completely ineffective beyond 100 Km.”

  “Depending on the area.” Joe said.

  Bait wiggled her head in acqueisance.

  “Some planets, asteroid fields, and nebulae mess with sensors or have extremely strong magnetosphere that make engagement ranges even smaller than that, but in open space those numbers hold. Again, unless you catch someone napping.”

  “What about stealth? In my time it was thought that stealth was untennable in space because you could you just look for a warm bit of space from someones drives with IR, or look for something moving against the background of stars?” I asked.

  Bait shook her head. “Do you know how long it takes to analyze changes in stars? How many different telescopes you'd need? Same with IR, you need both a lot of processing power and, just, SO many sensors with really high sensitivity to pick out a single ship trying to be stealthy out in the black. Unless you catch a ship on it's initial burn out from a planet, or on the braking burn in, you are not going to be able to pick someone up until they are very very close. Even the ships that do have all those sensors and telescopes, and have a massive computer system dedicated to processing, are going to either have their sensors burned out as soon as jamming starts, because high sensitivity also means high vulnerability, or they are going to get filled with so much junk data that they are going to give false readings, garbage in garbage out.”

  I nodded along.

  “So then what do...” I was interrupted as a massively loud BOOM hammered through the room, and Joe let out an anguished scream as I was thrown to the ground.