[center][color=9e0b0f][h1]The Midnight Technocracy[/h1][/color]
[@MetalWeight][@Irredeemable][/center]

The first trip through the Gateway was somewhat random, the ambassador starliner came across a suspiciously quiet system. They had expected to see a spaceship or two on their radars, at least satellites in orbit but they found nothing. The system was dead quite but clearly the Gateway was still active. Had the inhabitants of the system wiped themselves out in the Long Night?

After a more through scan was conducted, the Scarlet Gala cruised above the only planet that was giving them any reading. According to the ancient starmaps that were created before the Gateways closed, the planet was called Vystrallia, a lush continental world. The life form scans were saying there was roughly three billion people, give or take the normal inaccuracies of such systems.

The few living crew on board discussed how best to proceed. There was clearly life and human on some level, but the technology level of humanity wasn't there. Concerns were brought up about possible transmission of diseases, difference in language and general culture shock questions. It had been three centuries since humanity was first isolated and there was a legitimate concerned that the planet below them was no longer technologically advanced enough to have realized that humanity came from Earth.

The Scarlet Gala hung above the atmosphere, extending a communications array in an attempt to intercept communication signals to try and uncover language. There was a remarkable lack of electronic communication. One of the Wights joked that maybe they should be looking for smoke signals instead. After some frustrating searching, the crew managed to cobble together enough of the local language to try and make something approximating a friendly greeting.

They dropped out of orbit and hung above the largest urban center they could find, assuming that it was the capital city or at least an important planetary location. Now with a closer view, the crew was only more confused. It looked idyllic, like a mix of rolling hills, romantic fields and smoke clogged factory streets. It looked like some paintings from Old Earth's history, if you ignore the occasional jarring anachronism of clearly futuristic looking constructs. The nearest port had a mix of wooden sail ships and steel cargo haulers. Remera and Isoph looked at each other, then at the Wights and then at their Reanimated. They had been expecting to see the unexpected, but this was entirely baffling to them. Regardless, they continued with first contact.

From the Scarlet Gala, a shuttle dropped out of its hull and headed towards the nearest empty space where it could land. Upon arrival, a pair of beautiful people walked out, one darkly handsome male and one enchantingly ethereal woman. Behind them were masked guards who seemed more statue than person, not even moving to breath out of order. The language they spoke was foreign to the peasants who gathered around them, sounding harsh yet flowing in a sort of elegant way. Then, to their collective surprise, the extraterrestrial aliens spoke their own language, albeit with a heavy accent.

"Hello. We represent [i]Midnight Technocracy[/i], we like speak to leading citizens, officials. We come in no harm."

[hr]
The arrival of a foreign probe was only slightly unexpected with the reopening of the gateway. When it first arrived, it blasted a message over every single frequency on the planet, much to the annoyance of practically everyone. TV channels and radio networks were stunned silent as it played and Vladimir quickly scrapped together an official press release saying that the Council had assembled a group of linguists, historians and cultural experts to try and discern the message and for everyone to please remain calm. With only its message to go on and little more to give insights as to the language, translating the probe's message was hard enough. Any thoughts of replying in a full message was out the window as there was just too many gaps in vocabulary. Replying in Triferan wasn't likely to net anything of value either as the origins of the probe was still unknown. In the end, it was decided to simply try and send back what words they could make out from the message into their own.

"Hail. We meet own kind? One are lost mean through stars? We voyage our own. No harm."