The Family Business: CTAC New and Old
14 May 2022Lily Flemmon
The Philosopher's Respite returned to Meliae last night, and I flew Phoenix back to Chilton Terminal in the shiny new Mamba, the CTAC Pathfinder, docking in parallel and side-by side in the mailslot with the equally shiny Cuisinier, piloted by Mirabella McKay with Magnolia Hawthorne and CTAC's entire diplomatic kitchen staff, as the opening of a christening ceremony. The next ship in wasn't clearly part of our entourage, as it barely had paint on it anymore, but keen eyes could make out the letters "SCG RORY'S GAMBIT" on some of the paint that remained. That ship was carrying two of CTAC's newest members, Malcom Barrett and Aurora Bael. I opened the canopy of the Pathfinder and stepped out onto the front strake, and gave a speech about how CTAC's second mission to the Colonia region had gone. CTAC Director Sean Warren waved to me as I stepped out and I waved back, and began my address:It's good to be home again!
I'd like to formally thank Commanders Teqonix, Derecho, and Evilsarge, and most of all my good friend Commander Igikaizen, for getting us all there and back, with all the sights along the way.
While CTAC's second envoy mission to Colonia didn't have much of a plan, it still managed to not go as planned even before our arrival in the region. We planned a stop in Eoch Flyuae NC-O b50-44 for reasons personal to me- it's the system where I picked up 22 escape pods with living occupants and, as I now remember, suffered severe burn injuries in the process.
Forgive me, it's- it's not easy to talk about.
Upon return to that system, the Respite dropped out of hyperspace right on the second planet, the one where I left a few pods behind. I grabbed the last few pods, avoiding injury this time thanks to an eclipse of the planet's surface, but other Commanders in the convoy found more escape pods, and combed the entire system, finding even more, and all of the pods had living occupants. In total, including the original 22 survivors I rescued, this system contained 140 people who expected to never be found or rescued.
I delivered them to Colonia Hub, and said the pods were all from the same system. An investigation began, aiming to discover why all those crashes happened, and while the investigation is still ongoing, one thing has become clear:
"Jameson" should not be a verb. It never should have become a verb, and now it has. Because that's what happened to these 140 people. But unlike Jameson, all these people had safety systems in their ships that allowed them to survive.
I had to put my own needs first to cope with this reality, and to touch base with a few people about the amnesia I suffered on my last trip out. And before I could get to everyone I wanted to, I was interdicted by a Commander who I now can call a good friend. She found me because she wanted my help, and... Well, I have to say I needed hers too. She can give her own introduction, but I will say that we can expect her to become a valuable member of CTAC.
So, all in all, the mission did not go as planned, and was full of a near-critical mass of chaos, but despite all that, it was an incredible, wonderful success.
Thank you, and see you all in the rings!
Rory already had told me she could potentially be “activated” while in the rings, but with the Garden Guardian program being fully instated, widely popular, but still pretty new… if Rory did get activated, whatever happened next would be good practice for them. So even if that does happen, it’s not a bad thing… just a very chaotic thing. But hey, I’m queer, and chaos is a familiar concept for me.
I brought Rory here, and extended a membership offer to her and Mal, her business partner and… I guess the relationship between them is hard to classify or label for me. All I can say for sure is that it’s mutually supportive and nothing short of wonderful. And I brought them here because Rory… needs a place to call home. Not only is she the perfect candidate for an impossible-to-fill position in the core tech labs, a security specialist with a passion for biology, but she’s also a wonderful person and she deserves- and needs- a chance to show that. And there’s no better place to do that than in the rings of Chilton Terminal. In fact, Eclipse Night is only a handful of days away, and there’s no better time for her to really feel like she has a place, and a people, that she can call home.
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On another note, I think it's about time I summarized the history of CTAC in one of these logs.
CTAC began as far less than an agricultural cooperative. The history can actually be traced back to about 1870, if only loosely, with native peoples in a region known as Minnesota, in the center of North America, being forced onto reservations by colonizers... under the very government that would later become the Federation following the third world war. Facing a crisis of cultural annihilation, tribes of many traditions- Ojibwe, Lakota, Chippewa, and others, banded together over the next two centuries, continually struggling to maintain and preserve their heritage. They had already faced biological and military genocides, and their culture was forced to shift toward self-preservation.
Fast forward to the era of generation ships, when communities were formed to make centuries-long voyages to distant habitable worlds, many of these descendants of native peoples jumped at the first opportunity to commission such a megaship, the Generation Ship Akiise ("flying land"). Its voyage was long, but it allowed for the tribes to flourish, preserve their traditions, and, at its end, arrive at an Earth-Like World and live among its native life, rather than fully colonize it. The entire megaship was cannibalized, none of it going to waste, to make housing, tools, and to build a flourishing connected society.
Until the Rockforth Corporation arrived and began converting the world to high-yield farmland. Poetically, and horribly, a biological genocide followed, beginning with accidental transfer of diseases to which the native people were very, very vulnerable. Few survived, but it would eventually prove to be enough. Those who remained fled to 21 Draco, taking up residence in the newly constructed Chilton Terminal, where they did the little they still could to preserve their traditions and remember all those they lost. To survive, they grew produce in gardens, and established restaurants of their cuisine, and it was their saving grace for one key reason: The food they offered was better than anything Rockforth could offer to visitors of the starport. As they began to expand, they formed the Chilton Terminal Agricultural Cooperative.
Complete nighttime-like darkness is rare in the rings of the station- about 10 hours every 15 days, when the station is eclipsed by the mostly Rockforth-owned world it orbits. Those "Eclipse Nights" always began with powwow, an Ojibwe tradition of celebration that is open to anyone. And people outside the tribe often joined the festivities, and CTAC began to grow, eventually taking up the entirety of both of Chilton Terminal's rings. A community of cooperation, anarchy, caring for one another, and really, really good food began to flourish.
And then I arrived. I collapsed in the Wiikwandiwin Garden, and...
And I met Ronni.
I miss her.