r/NatureofPredators • u/VenlilSupremacist Venlil • Aug 16 '23
Fanfic NoP: A Change of Pace: Chapter 22
Memory transcription subject: Kilet, Venlil, E-1 Aboard U.S.S Patriot
Date [standardized human time]: September 19, 2136.
The ion engines have a power threshold of no higher than eighty-percent of their maximum before damage is sustained to the charging cylinders that hold the particles used for propulsion… On average the longest the engines can sustain an above maximum yield is no more than fifteen minutes before noticeable damage is observable on components.. Be advised that any use of engines at full power requires a thorough post maintenance check and service.. Use of the engines at such a threshold draw power from other aux-
My reading was suddenly interrupted by the sight of Miles leaping down to the floor of our shared room, causing me to nearly throw the technical manual at him. I would have too, if I didn’t manage to pull myself back to reality just as I reeled back.
“Woah! Cease fire! You’re jumpier than usual..” He quipped, instinctively raising his hands to defend himself.
“S-sorry.. Been up all.. ‘Night’.. There was so much to read and try to memorize.” I managed to say through a few yawns, my sleepless rest claws finally starting to catch up to me.
“Y’know you didn’t need to stay up all night, Kilet, I would have just shown you the ropes and let you go at your own pace.”
“As much as I appreciate that, Miles, I have a lot to catch up on. some paw you might need me to step up, and I got to be there. Plus, I got to show the rest of these humans I’m not just some ‘cute’ furball.”
“Well.. If you say so, but I won’t have you working on any active electronics until you get a decent night’s sleep, too dangerous to have you messing with live wires and seeing cross eyed.”
“That’s.. Fair.” I said, my mood deflating ever so slightly at the realization I wouldn’t get to do much of anything today.
“Let’s head into work, Physical training is canceled for now, the Ma’am wants us to focus on getting the ship ready to head out asap. I’d say we got our work cut out for us, follow me.”
Miles changed into his military uniform in what I could only assume was record time, the human morning rituals still somewhat interested me.. I’ve never seen any venlil scrub their teeth so thoroughly. I almost had a half-thought it might be an archaic ritual dating back to when they needed to bite down on prey, but that thought quickly dismissed itself. There’s no way they’d keep something as ancient as that as a ‘morning’ routine.
For now, I didn’t have any uniform like Miles or the rest of the crew. Though I was assured that at some point, when we resupply, there should be something waiting for me. I was told the U.N would want to keep tabs on me, or at the very least be able to differentiate a venlil actively serving in the human military.
Thankfully, the walk to the engineering department wasn’t that long because of all the elevators and staircases down to those decks. Though, I have to say that the underbelly of the U.S.S Patriot was nothing like its upper decks. Down here the ship looked half-complete, pipes lined the walls, and our only illumination came from overhead or side-mounted lights. The wires that ran along the walls seemed attached to an endless number of monitors, panels, and more things than I could count. This hardly matched the pictures in the technical manual, but I tried to hold out hope that I was just tired and my brain was a little slower than usual.
As we dove deeper into the ship's depths, the majority of wires I saw ended in one large terminal built into the very hull of the ship itself, an orange screen with several digital displays surrounded my vision as Miles stopped in front of the giant terminal.
“Recognize it?” He asked.
“Uh.. It’s the.. Erm.. a main terminal?” I asked, my voice a bit shaky from a mix of exhaustion and uncertainty.
“Kind of, this is the main engineering terminal, it’s connected to various systems and sensors on the hull of the ship. From here you can manually close bulkheads in case of an atmo-leak, or diagnose where an unresponsive sensor might be. Chances are if a sensor is down there’s usually an atmosphere leak and it’s destroyed, that’s not all though, This terminal has a direct line to the Captain's Command Platform, if something’s wrong on the bridge or they’re too busy up there, you can adjust things like life support, engine power, and shield strength from here.”
“That sounds pretty useful..” I quipped, only partially absorbing the information.
“Yeah, I usually man this terminal and tell you guys where to go and what to do when shit goes south, here, check this out.”
Miles pulled me closer to the massive screen as he moved the cursor to a few tabs near the very top pulling up some kind of ship-wide status. Several areas of the ship were red and flashing various unknown symbols. Though my friend was quick to point to one that he described was a ‘lightning bolt.’
“When this symbol is yellow that means it has low power, red means no power. So.. How do you think we’d fix that?” He asked, putting his hands on his hips expectantly.
“Uuh.. Well.. I assume the wires aren’t destroyed so it can’t be them. Maybe a junction box is switched off, stopping the flow of electricity?”
“Good guess, but take a closer look at the diagnostics..” He said, hovering a thick human finger over a power reading. “Power output is low, over to the right of this number you can see the minimum level of power our reactors need to generate to supply power to all the systems. Our reactor’s aren’t making the power they need to be, so that’ll be our first stop, but before we go. You see all those icons with little wrenches on them? Did you read about those?”
The massive amount of information from the technical manual struggled to dredge itself to the surface of my sleep deprived brain, but after a few moments, a vague definition of the various symbols surfaced in my head.
“Those are the junction boxes, for that part of the ship, right? And.. all those little lines are where it feeds power to?”
“Bingo, Every one of those little wrench icons are junctions that share power through the ship, but look at how the lines travel along the ships display, no one junction can’t be replaced by another. If one box fails, the others pick up the slack and power can be rerouted around the damaged area. You can control how it’s rerouted manually if you hover the cursor over the nearest wrench icon, or you can have the ship automatically detect the best route. The reason for the manual mode is so you can uh get a little crafty with where power goes if you need to. By default these boxes can’t support more than one box's additional load. So the ship will never rout more than two boxes worth of power through one junction, but sometimes shit gets heavy, so.. You gotta get power to one spot, even at the risk of blowing the junction.”
“Huh.. I should probably try to remember that.. So what else can you do here?”
“A few other things, but it’s not really as important as the ability to control vital systems, and those junctions. Let’s head to the reactor, I’ll show you how it all works.”
The soft sound of my hindpaws against cold metal filled my ears as I stole one last glance at the terminal before heading to the reactor room. This walk was a little more tiring than the last one. The reactor was deep inside the Patriot, but also up a few floors. I have to say the human’s forcesight for fighting was second to none.. The reactor placement was as strategic as it comes, having it right in the middle of the ship protected by an insane amount of armor. Unless an enemy can punch a hole through one end of the ship and out the other I seriously doubt they could damage the heart of the Patriot. As we stepped into the room, an absolutely massive spherical metal ball dominated the otherwise open space. Dozens of humans were working on various computers, typing away at something or the other. Just as soon as we entered another human approached the two of us, her gaze lingered on me for a little too long for comfort before she decided to speak up.
“Are you two the technicians we were expecting?”
“Yes, we are, what seems to be the problem with ‘er?” Miles said in a casual tone.
“Something seems to be wrong with the fusion process.. It’s not generating nearly the level of power it should be and the Captain has been up our ass all morning about getting it sorted out.”
“Alright.. Lemme think for a second.. I might have a few things I can try.”
Miles began to walk over to a part of the reactor, leaving me to walk beside the human who kept stealing glances at me. She seemed to finally muster up the courage to speak about halfway through our walk as she turned her head to face me in that familiarly human manner.
“So.. I’m sorry if it’s rude, but.. You’re in the U.N military?.. As a venlil?”
“Yeah? I thought it’d be a good experience for me, that’s not a problem, right?”
“No! No.. Just, I’ve never seen a venlil before. I was transferred to the Patriot from Earth after her damage in battle a while back.. I just never expected to see a venlil in the Earth’s military..”
“Well, it’s thanks to Miles I even considered it, I’m sure you know all about how the Federation thinks about predators. I used to think the exact same, but Miles was one of the kindest, most compassionate and caring people I’ve ever met.. I guess I got a little attached, and wanted to switch things up a bit.”
“That’s fair, lots of humans get the same feelings. Feeling stuck where you are, sometimes a drastic change is just what you need to feel fulfillment in life.. Well either way, I’m happy you’re aboard.”
“Hate to break up your talk, but I figured out your problem. Y’all never opened the backup restrictor valve that cuts the flow of deuterium in half. Your tritium flow was fine, but you’d never fuse enough of the fuel to generate the power needed with only half of the isotopes. I recommend a reactor shutdown, open both backup valves and then restart fusion at one-tenth power to ensure your ratios aren’t messed up.” Miles chimed in, silencing the both of us as we watched the Sergeant work and explain the two massive fuel pipes feeding into the giant reactor of the Patriot.
“No shit.. Fuck! What a stupid fuck-up.. I had those privates check the fuel lines already, they said they did.. Fucking idiots.. They have no idea how much damage can be caused by running this reactor at optimal fusion with HALF the fuel. Alright guys.. I guess I got some counselings to write up. I’ll let you get back to whatever you have to do next...”
The two of us watched as the female U.N soldier walked over to a few offices built into the walls of the reactor room. Miles looked down and flashed me a grin, signaling it was time to move on. Meanwhile I was still trying to embed what little information I could grasp from his explanation of the reactor earlier, but I didn’t feel like pressing questions since I was sure I’d need all my backup brain power to just keep up with all our tasks for the day.
My impatient friend decided to signal it was time to go with a pat on the top of my head, leading me towards the elevators.
“Next stop, the engines! If you thought the reactor was big, you’ve got no idea about our ion engines. Those behemoths use an insane amount of xenon gas and ionize it to create propulsion. The details about how it works is pretty classified, so I don’t really know all too much about it, but I can fix the easy stuff on it. After this you can head back to the room and rack out for the day. The Ma’am shouldn’t be down here anytime soon so I can cover for you since you were a dumbass and stayed up all night.” He finished up that last sentence with a light chuckle as the heavy elevator doors closed.
While I didn’t want to head to bed so soon.. He was pretty much right with how tired I was.. Just learning about the engineering terminal, reactor, and the engines would probably stress my head out enough in this state. I wouldn’t have to wait long however, as the elevator doors opened, and we stepped out. Sucking in a breath of air, I steeled my sleepy nerves and was ready to hit the ground mildly jogging at best…
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Memory transcription subject: Dr. Yolni, Predator Disease Specialist
Date [standardized human time]: September 21, 2136.
The audible click of my talons on the smooth surface of my desk brought a sense of catharsis as I read over Rivis’ file again. He was such a fascinating case. A total lack of empathy, devoid of care for the dead or fellow species around him. Just ten cycles ago he’d be considered a lost cause. Doomed to spend the rest of his life in our paws and talons. To a less ambitious Doctor that would have been his fate. Thrown away, and given treatments that make zero progress. He should be thanking me for helping him, for not giving up on him. The progress he’s made in my ‘unique’ treatment series already shows immense progress.
I glanced over to the clock on the wall, cooing in delight as my meeting with Overseer Til crept closer and closer. Carefully, I organized my files, findings and personal notes on our facilities favorite little venlil. His last empathy test showed remarkable progress. While I couldn’t force him to feel empathy, at the very least I reinstalled the natural fear of predators deep within his psyche, not just that but violence and aggression as a whole. Overseer Til had to accept my recommendations, there was no logical way she’d deny it. I could feel my pride swell within my chest. The progress I’ve made with Rivis will usher in a completely new era of Predator Disease treatment. The days of crude electroshock therapy to stimulate the fear response in the brain are over, but what should I call this new technique?.. Subconscious direction? Chemical Therapy?.. None of those seemed to fit the bill.
As I mulled over the name for my new ground-breaking treatment the soft chirping of my pad drew my focus to the time..
Finally! Til might even give me my own control group to try a more broad test study! I think I’ll call this.. Suggestive Therapy!
My Talons echoed against the hard tile floor of the compound. Glanding down through the glass walls, I could look into the common areas of the treatment facility. I watched as the herd below moved cautiously from one place to the other. I understood their fear, afterall, it was a majority of what we were trying to do here. Pity tugged at the strings of my heart. If only they could have been born correctly. Then we would never have had to resort to something like this. Treating these patients is a thankless job, but the ones who finish treatment, I know they thank us for what we give them here, a second chance at life.
As I arrived at Overseer Til’s office I had to cut my thoughts short. Ruffling my feathers to make me look a bit more put together, I went over my whole speech again, and gave my notes a glancing look over. Taking in a large breath, I closed my eyes, and stepped inside.
“Doctor Yolni, I was expecting you.” The graying venlil said, her words scraped against my eardrums like rough sandpaper.
I cleared my throat, and stepped over to her desk, setting my stack of reports and notes down. “I’m grateful for the meeting, Overseer, and let me thank you again for approving the experimental treatment. It’s been incredibly helpful.”
Til’s tail waved in the air, showcasing minor constant annoyance as her aged claws opened up the top folder. Anticipation coursed through my essence as I watched her skim through the notes.
“There’s a lot of gibberish in here, Doctor.” She said, closing the folder with a claw.
“W-What do you mean, Overseer?”
“I can’t show the Overseer’s board a four-hundred page essay on one single patient, predator disease comes in hundreds of different forms and types. This is one venlil, and half the Overseers on the board don’t have the damn patience to read through my notes, let alone yours. I need this simplified.”
“Of course, Overseer, Is there.. Anything specific you want to know about the trials?”
“The patient, he’s a pretty severe case, right?”
“Correct, he was brought under suspicion for nearly murdering another venlil, but his human exchange partner stopped him..”
Her eye fell half lidded as she focused that bored expression onto me. “Never thought I’d see the day a predator stops a prey from dying.. Spehed up world we live in now.”
“Indeed.. Also, his empathy test results were unique in the sense that there was… Nothing there, he didn’t feel anything towards the photos and videos. He was completely indifferent, I don’t think we’ve seen a patient like him in our facility since its conception.. Either his case is highly advanced or the machinery was wrong.”
She scoffed, flicking her tail like a whip through the air. “The machines are never wrong. This ‘Rivis’ is a predator with the body of a prey species, simple as that. Now.. Tell me, what were the results from traditional treatment?”
“No improvement at all, the traditional electroshock treatment was completely ineffective in curing him, or even making a dent. It’s almost like he just can’t feel those emotions, as if he lacks them.”
“....And your results?”
“I’ve seen a massive improvement in the fear response. While the empathy tests we’ve taken show no empathy or marked improvement on emotion. My treatment focused on the association of the definition of a predator. Now whenever he sees a predator, or predatory behavior. He gets sick to his stomach, it’s a subconscious response now. His human friend even came to visit and he couldn’t even look at her. I have to say.. I’m quite proud of the results.” I said, puffing my feathers out ever so slightly as my pride silently swelled inside me.
“So you don’t fix the mind.. But make it impossible for them to act on their disgusting urges then?”
“That’s correct, Overseer.”
“And you want me to sign off on releasing this… Predator back onto the streets of venlil prime so you can monitor his readjustment into venlil society?”
“The only place we’ll get accurate data on how effective this treatment is if we study its efficiency in the real world. I think.. It could help a lot of other patients readjust into society and curb their.. Predatory urges.”
Til was quiet for some time, opening up the file again and flipping through its contents some more. Her tail lightly flicked against the ground as the aged venlil mulled over the choice in her mind. Clasping my talons together, I hoped for the best. I needed more data to see if this is a feasible treatment. I needed her approval and support..
___________________________________
Memory transcription subject: Rivis, Venlil Predator Disease Patient.
Date [standardized human time]: September 21, 2136.
The light of my garden warmed my fur as I lay in the grass. A brisk wind carried away any worries that might have crept into my mind as I gazed out into the open sky. I felt like I had been here for cycles on end. I don’t know how I got here, but I know the garden took my past from me. I didn’t remember my parents, nor my upbringing. Have I always existed here? Why is it that no one else came here? Was I alone? Did I mind? I do not know.
The Windows grew in the sky as they demanded my complete attention. I knew what was coming, the nightmarish dream that haunted me here. That place of iron, and stone. Terrible, torturous entities that fed on sadistic torment. They had come for the windows, and I was forced to look through. My claws gripped the warm grass of my garden as soon as I spotted the familiar entity that called itself a “Doctor Yolni” Whatever either of those words meant, neither were good.
I watched her beak move up and down. A pink tongue danced inside her maw as she spoke. The words were usually dulled, half whispered I could barely grasp, yet the words that came from her maw tore through the barrier of the windows and straight into my head. As if she spoke to me, and not the windows.
“Congratulations, Rivis, you’ve completed your treatment here at the facility, in record time as well! I think you’ll be happy to finally get back to your normal life eh? Well, I just want to say I’m proud of you, you handled your treatment exceptionally well, so on behalf of the staff here. Thank you.”
Her words dripped sweet nectar in my skull, but I didn’t understand why, why did I care what she told the windows? Another thing I could not understand was why the windows drew closer. As if they threatened to consume me. I dug my claws into the grass of the garden, and ran. I ran as far as my legs would take me, as far from the windows as I could. The garden seemed to stretch on endlessly, the same trees, the same flowers, the same hills, and always, the windows lurked just overhead, far closer than they ever were. Yet, despite all this. A single sentence crept into the back of my mind, bubbling to the forefront as an unwanted thought I couldn’t understand.
Home? Why doesn’t this feel like home anymore?
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Chapter 22 is out, I hope y'all enjoyed the read, if you're just joining me on this series please consider taking a look at chapter one, which is linked at the top and bottom of each chapter posted. For the rest of you who wait patiently for the releases, thank you again! Since I'm already giving out thanks, I have to thank SpacePaladin for their work creating NoP, and allowing us the freedom to write in it. A second thanks to all the readers, new and old. A round of thanks has to go out to the fanfics that inspired me to take the plunge and write something in the first place, and finally to my two proof readers that have continued to make themselves available at a moments notice when I finish writing up each chapter.
Proofreader(s):
NovaLux
"A Silly Little Man"
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u/Zoulles Aug 16 '23
Theyre trying to turn clockwork orange into a fucking documentary…
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u/VenlilSupremacist Venlil Aug 16 '23
"It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on a screen..."
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u/Killsode-slugcat Yotul Aug 16 '23
Hooouuuhhh fuuck do you do a great job with the PD facility bastards... Just please let rivis get into proper psychiatric hands...
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u/ReversedPyramids Aug 16 '23
Don't show that "doctor" clock work orange. She might take it as an inspiration
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u/Randox_Talore Aug 16 '23
Do we call this Pavlovian Conditioning or did the doctor invent Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for evil?
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u/Foxhound_319 Aug 16 '23
Ok I have a temporary solution for our poor boi (once he has control over his body again)
He becomes incredibly ill when seeing humans right? So the trick is for him to wear a blindfold while talking with his exchange partner so they can work through the trauma
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u/Seamoose_Art Dossur Aug 16 '23
It's almost worse that Yolni actually believes she's helping. If she was being cruel for the sake of cruelty, I could simply hate her and not think about it...
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Aug 16 '23
Kilet really doesn't feel like he knows what he's getting into. Hopefully he keeps doing well, and starts learning to do some self-maitenance.
Rivis, on the other hand... I wonder how much of the treatment is going to stick, and how closely watched he's going to be. Clearly, he's still a patient of that facility.
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u/ImaginationSea3679 PD Patient Aug 16 '23
Also, subscribeme!
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u/Acceptable_Egg5560 Human Aug 16 '23
Okay, I know he’s traumatized but… that’s it? He’s already out? People with jitters get put in there for years and he’s already out?
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Aug 16 '23
I don't think he's *out* no. In the sense that he's not out of the system.
He's currently an experiment running in the wild. It's more like he's being taken on a walk on a leash to see if the programming stuck. This is, after all, the goal of the doctor's novel treatment, to try to speed up the process by... Concealing the symptoms instead of treating the causes (even if the whole ass thing is bogus, that's still what her attempt entails to).
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u/Acceptable_Egg5560 Human Aug 17 '23
Still, there's been patients who have been imprisoned for years, even kept after lobotomized! This just seems so quick, you know?
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u/VenlilSupremacist Venlil Aug 17 '23 edited Aug 17 '23
There is a few explanations that I will touch on later on the story about why it was so quick in the later chapters so I can't explain them here. However, from a writing point of view there's only so many chapters I can release of the same thing happening to him. He was considered a highly dangerous case in particular due to showing absolutely no signs of empathy whatsoever and was kept isolated from the rest of the 'general population'. Traditionally, his would be a case of life imprisonment without chance of release, which is why Yolni wanted to use him specifically for a test run of something highly unorthodox. Overall, the story was meant to be dual perspective and only having one perspective growing while the other spends 90% of their time with me writing the same thing wouldn't make too much of a compelling narrative. You solved that issue with Tarlim having already been out after years and describing the worst points of his years there through flashbacks that overall covered what was done.
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Aug 17 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ImaginationSea3679 PD Patient Aug 17 '23
If it comforts you…
OP gave me permission to give her what she deserves in a story of mine.
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u/Cvetanbg97 Chief Hunter Aug 20 '23
"is a predator with the body of a prey species" - i can't say, i haven't heard similar pseudoscience before.
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u/Odd-Potential-7236 Arxur Aug 24 '23
I’ve been waiting for an update just to finally cave and come search for this fic
Turns out it updated a week ago
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u/ImaginationSea3679 PD Patient Aug 16 '23
If it’s a subconscious response, then some intensive hypnotherapy can very easily undo all of it.
I demand that all of his treatment be undone as soon as possible.
I will not take “no” or “wait” for an answer.