Meeting Professor Palin
12 Mar 2017Tristan Pacheco
Yesterday, the Black Angels were tasked with escorting some Navy brass all the way to Maia to consult with Professor Palin. Why? We're going to (try to) work with him to try to invent weaponry that might counter our new alien threat. The Federation's relationship with Palin is...interesting...to say the least. He used to live in Federal space and was fairly pro-Fed, working on FSD technology and ship drives, occasionally assisting in other research with his peers. That all changed when he decided to work on alien technology that was becoming available at the time. We had done almost no research on it ourselves...the Navy that is, and we certainly couldn't have some random civilian making a big deal out of something we wanted to keep classified (until we understood fully the implications of course), so when he tried to create a research facility behind our backs with colonial funding, well...we revoked the funding and essentially told him to screw off. Kind of a douche move on our part but I see why we made it. It was our understanding at the time that Palin would not dream of having the funds himself to start another base, so either he'd have to ask the Alliance or the Empire for help. The Empire would never do such a thing and we...persuaded Alliance authorities to avoid doing it as well, for their own security. Never once did we think he'd talk with the Pilot's Federation and request funding from the entire Bubble. We tried to downplay his attempts but to no avail, and he ended up with an enormous multi-trillion credit facility in Maia, far outside our own jurisdiction. After getting our collective hands on this guy's research, however, we realized he was about as far from 'crackpot theorist' as you could get. So what did we do about it? Naturally we tried to take over Maia, and very, very nearly succeeded. We at least have enough authority over the zone now to have 'offered our protection' (yeah, from what/who, I know, shitty reasoning on our part) to Palin via stationing a capital detachment right over his base. We've since been trying to make amends by sending the occasional monetary relief package and odd scientist, so it hasn't been all bad. But now we, and for that matter the rest of humanity, need his help desperately.
We landed at the facility and had a rather brief chat with him before we let the scientists/diplomats we brought with us do the rest of the talking. The 50th decided to self-tour the facility. A bunch of the doors were locked with tiered keycards that we had no access to, so we didn't see a great deal, but we did find our way underneath the facility and then back up into the gardens. I'd never actually been inside a biodome, and this one had a prime internal view of the Pleiades, so we stayed there until our friends told us that it was time to leave. I asked to stay longer but they were holding some sort of boxes (I assumed solid state memory of some kind), and they made it clear that it was vital that we returned to Sol with the data immediately.
So we did. Of course the rest of the squadron with their generally superior jump range was waiting for me at Mars High. We turned in the data and had a lengthy discussion as to its apparent implications. The admiralty decided we needed to enlist the help of someone named Ram Tah. I had never heard the name before in my life, but apparently he was working with independent pilots on some alien ruins totally unrelated to the Thargoids. This immediately piqued my interest, and I insisted the 50th play escort again. I was nearly denied, as we were worried about security in that sector of space, but after some persuasion, we were granted permission. We depart tomorrow evening. I'm quite excited.
Until next time,
RADM Tristan Pacheco