The Martial Unity

Rui knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to convince the laminar integuments that they had this under control. This was a species that carried their trauma in chromatographic stains and could pass on the light from that memory to their future generations. That meant that even if a lot of time had passed since the explosion of their home world, they probably hadn’t truly gotten over the crisis. And it also meant that they were going to be extremely sensitive to this issue. Thus, he needed to truly convince them that Gaia was extremely secure and had no chance of being compromised.

Thankfully, there was an easy way to check.

“You may see for yourself,” Rui replied with a calm tone. “Since your species is one of innate honesty, you may come and visit our world, and even conduct extensive surveys and studies on the Panama Continent to verify whether or not it is possible for the alien virus to regain control.”

Words were unlikely to confirm them, even if they were his words. Of course, he was a Martial Transcendent, but that context did not exist for an alien species that didn’t live among them. And while the Tendril of Light had beheld Rui in battle, wiping out all nebulars, it was not necessarily convinced that that power could be translated into keeping the planet free from the influence of the virus.

“I have put in place many measures to ensure that the virus cannot regain control of our planet and continue the expansion process to destroy our world,” Rui informed the jellyfish-like alien hovering in empty space five meters away from him. “It is difficult for me to convey the full depth of these measures in words when we come from different trees of life entirely. Thus, I invite you to deploy a team of researchers to our world who, under our supervision, will conduct scans, take samples, and thoroughly examine the state of esoteric matter in our world. You will see for yourself that Gaia is extremely well-protected both internally and externally.

The laminar integument was clearly moved by those words, judging from the shifts in the flux of light flashes that flowed through the jellyfish’s body. It found the argument compelling, certainly, their own verification would convince them more than any assurance from an indigenous alien species that was more primitive than them.

“Acceptable. Proposition.” The Tendril of Light replied. “However. Will. Need. Set. Up. Base. On. Planet. Acceptable?”

Rui expressed his reluctance to that requirement. It was not going to be popular to have a laminar base on their world, even if ostensibly for research purposes only. However, if they were going to maintain good relations, then this level of openness was going to be necessary.

If he rejected them here, he was basically telling the laminar integument that he didn’t trust them at all. That made anything beyond this much more untenable. “It is acceptable,” Rui replied. “However, only conditionally. Your staff and your base will be under human supervision at all times, and any and all transfers that go back and forth will have to go through us first.”

“Conditions. Acceptable. Can. Negotiate. Details. Later,” the laminar integument replied. “More. Important. If. Research. Deemed. Virus. Risk. Still. High. Then?”

The air, or the vacuum of outer space, rather, grew tense as the laminar integument boldly broached a difficult topic. Indeed, if the Laminar Civilization deemed that the measures that they had taken were insufficient, then they would come at an impasse.

The Laminar Civilization would undoubtedly push to destroy their world. Perhaps, out of goodwill and in order to preserve the strategic advantages that their species had, they would offer to transfer their people off the world before destroying it, but that was simply unacceptable to Gaian Civilization.

The world was the only home he had ever known, as Earth or as Gaia, he had no intention of ever abandoning it, and he would fight to protect it. ‘I’ll have to beef up the protective measures even more before letting them come in,’ Rui noted. “We will resolve that dispute if and when it does arrive.”

“Acceptable,” the laminar integument wisely moved on from the topic, rather than pushing for a concession on the destruction of their world, which it knew the native life would never accept. “If. Risk. Negated. Or. If. Your. Civilization. Accepts. Planetary. Departure. In. Case. Of. Risk. Then. Laminar. Civilization. Accepts. Peace.”

It was probably the best he was going to get from the laminar integuments.

“Next. Matter. Paths. Pathwalkers,” the laminar integument remarked. “We. Seek. Research. Reverse. Engineering. Need. Samples. Large. Samples. Lots. Of. Samples.”

Rui frowned. “We cannot give you samples of our people. We value our people, and we will not surrender a population of them to become test subjects.”

This was another area where Rui would have to push back, not just because he himself was not going to accept any situation where a human being lost their agency, but also because it would be politically untenable back home even if he was a Martial Transcendent. The laminar integument clearly sensed his unwillingness, remaining silent for several moments. The paths and pathwalkers were one of two reasons that they were entertaining this indigenous species. They would have ideally liked to get a sample of one million human beings to conduct all manner of tests on them and identify the essence of what a path was.

But it sensed that it would not be able to compel Rui of such a demand, thus it limited the scope of its demands.

“Then. Seek. Native. Knowledge. On. Biology,” the laminar pushed for a much more amenable alternative. “Seek. Temporary. Research. Subjects. Only. Conduct. Scans. Harmless. Check-ups. Safe. Research.”

Both of those were much more acceptable, as far as Rui was concerned. He didn’t see the harm in sending them the wealth of knowledge on human biology that they had gathered. He intended to conduct information exchanges in the first place, and that obviously entailed sending the basics. The latter was a little bit more complicated, but still amenable. Basically, they would do simpler studies on human beings that would temporarily serve as research subjects in some kind of arrangement.

It was hardly any different from human trials that medical solutions needed to get past in order to get approved.

“That is acceptable,” Rui replied. “However, in turn, we get access to information as well, but…”

His eyes grew serious.

“We want information about this galaxy, the cosmos, and the universe. We also want information not on the biology of your species, but the location of your civilization, the scale, power, and technological level of your civilization.”