Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Security Risk

Posted Monday Mar 3

@HotICe

"Alright, alright hello everyone, hope you are all having a great day, and today I am super excited to make the announcement, the secret announcement I have been talking about for months and its finally here."

A man's face appears in the camera at a low angle jostling back and forth as he walks. Around him the sound of a crowd echoes through a building The lights are bright, and when the camera turns you can see shops lining the thoroughfare, people walking this way and that with their suitcases hovering behind them. The camera finally turns back to the face, still at a low angle.

"So last year Adam Vir gave his big announcement how he is accepting, basically refugees, but mostly any qualified workers from earth, to set up for work the Arcadia system colonies. Providing people with jobs and homes and all of that, and I thought it was so cool that it got me thinking. Why do I need to live on earth? I mean what's the point? Why do I need to be so close to everyone else, and then that thought sort of snowballed and now I am proud to announce that...... drumroll please.... I have moved to Arcadia!"

"Here let me just turn my camera around. Guys this is so big, and I am here to share it with all of you to give you guys an idea of how it is. So I wasn't able to pull my camera out earlier but the arcadia spaceport is pretty standard, a lot of other species though, like more than I have ever seen, and guys drev are like WAYYYY taller than they look on TV. I mean it sort of makes since since the saint of Anin is like one of the most iconic portrayals of Drev and she's not very tall, but guys some of them are like nine to ten feet tall, and the Rundi, like I thought they were supposed to be like short, but they are actually really big, like I sort of thought of them like the size of those tiny dinosaurs, but no they are huge."

The camera follows a Drev discretely as she walks by. She's at least nine feet tall and the camera has to pan up to get a good look at her. Her carapace is a sort of iridescent orange/red like fire, behind her walks a Rundi, sort of shuffling on three limbs as he reads a data pad in the other hand.

"Hold on, ok, this is the port, just coming down from disembarking. Oh look up there they have skylights, I mean, it doesn't really matter, Arcadia doesn't actually have a sun, its like a wandering planet, but look!.... I think I saw soemthing glowing outside, just there."

Overhead the sky is completely dark. The light makes it difficult to see the stars through the open window but the silhouette of space jellies can be seen distantly through the glass as they pass overhead: little flecks of colored light passing by the windows. The camera pans back down to the terminal where hundreds of people move past. Some Security wears black body armor and watched the crowd evenly with cold watchful eyes.

And then there are the NeoSpartans. They stand out even here on arcadia, with their golden shields and Corinthian helmets. They wear green capes off their shoulders for the Arcadia flag. The Camera zooms in on them discretely highlighting one man's well tailored physique

"Soooo many species guys, and like.... Everyone is super ripped. Like damn even the ladies could crush me, and to be honest.... I don't mind that. I was reading somewhere online before I came here as research, and some anthropologist or soemthing has taken a look at the evolving arcadian culture, and its sort of a crazy mashup between Modern Drev, classical Roman, and early 21st century. Like they have a Colosseum where they have massive fight nights, and look over there, they have like statues and stuff I the Roman style. I guess the culture here is big on the celebration of the body, and peak wartime physicality which is a sort of fusion from the Drev and Neospartans. Look at that statue, its beautiful, do you see that, the Drev is made out of some dark stone, and the carapace is like some sort of opal. I mean I doubt its real opal, but you get what I'm saying."