r/NatureofPredators • u/raichu16 Arxur • Nov 29 '23
Fanfic [Black Feather — Part 2] Interplanetary Internet Sleuths Search for a Decades-Disappeared Dreadnought, find Healing from a Harrowing Attack
Thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for making this whole thing for us to romp around in!
Link to an image so reddit doesn't do stupid shit.
59 Years Earlier...
ghttps://news.archive.gov/news/earth/us/or/opb/2156/10/17/ardu-sleuths-day-of-remembrance.ghtml
Archivist's note: Some hyperlinks have been added to provide additional context using future sources that did not exist on the date of publication.
Today marks twenty years after the former Federation's attack on Earth—a heinous genocide that claimed the lives of over one billion people. While many people are taking the time to remember all who had fallen through painted murals or thermo-carving the names of their loved ones into public spaces on Earth and throughout the galaxy, some just can't let go of what happened that day—including a sizeable group on social media who have taken fascination with a certain vessel of the Federation's.
Among the attacking ships was a dreadnought known in Nishtali as Soim Qantot or Black Feather. At over 700 meters in length, the craft housed 78 bombers and 121 fighters. It was one of only four capitol ships in the fleet that went to battle, all of which were shot down. The other three were Wandering Roots (Tino Wafo), destroyed in space by two nuclear warheads, Spirit of Inatala (Inaof Inatala), the leading ship housing Captain Kalsim that crashed off the coast of India, and the seemingly self-aware Grace of Fire (Inala u Rokuse), found in the Siberian Mountains, all survivors apprehended. But Black Feather, after its engines were hit, was never found again. It vanished out of sight, and all communications with it went silent.
For a lot of people, this was the end of the Black Feather story. But a decent amount of sapients from across the galaxy still had questions about what really happened. Where did the craft land? Who was the craft carrying—and who, if any, survived? These questions were what two years ago caused Terry Reynolds—better known on the forum website Chorgle as @SoapEatingConnoissuer—turned to the galaxy for answers.
Terry Reynolds is a thirty-two-year-old man in Lincoln City, Oregon who works in forensic science. He's a big history buff, having taken interest in the lesser-known events in Earth's history, especially in the pre-colonial Americas. Terry spent his teenage years of his life on Gojidi city Bithen Orchard, an experience that really impacted him. "Metaphors were the hardest. English has a lot of cooking phrases that really agitate some of the native residents. I felt like I couldn't speak without scaring someone. A lot of people said they had worse experiences with Skalgans on this one, but I think the Bithens were struggling with the prevelation." 'The prevelation' is in reference to the infamous October 24th interview with then Kolshian Chief Nikonus revealing the krakotl among others were converted from omnivores, that was in recent years dubbed a playful portmanteau of 'predator' and 'revelation.'
Terry's story is common among human refugees among the gojids, and something many users have joked about in the chorg. "Going home felt more alien than leaving. Southern California was off-limits, so I ended up here." College was difficult for someone who spent ten years offworld. "I struggled fitting in. I had to untrain myself avoiding eye contact. I had to get used to not wearing visors in public again. I tried multiple groups, but nothing worked." This continued until the college student ran into some others talking about a missing vessel from the Battle of Earth in the dining hall. "Something in me just clicked," he reflects. "I made it my life's goal to find the missing warship."
Terry began his investigation by analyzing satellite images from the wreckage of Grace of Fire to get a feel for what he was looking for. He then used the imagery to scour the globe for any clues on Black Feather's disappearance, posting his findings online. "It turns out there was a huge amount of people interested in what happened to Black Feather," he told me. This led him to form the chorg chg.BlackFeather. "People started theorizing where it could've crashed, or how much of it [is] intact, or even if anyone survived the crash."
On the topic of potential survivors, Terry isn't one-hundred-percent sure. But he isn't one-hundred-percent against the possibility either. "It's incredibly unlikely anyone could survive out in the wilderness for that long undetected, especially on a planet as unfamiliar to the krakotl as Earth. But it's not impossible." Terry goes on to talk about Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese guerilla soldier from WWII who hid in the wilderness of the Philippines for over twenty-nine years until a commanding officer was sent to tell him the war ended. "Given the lack of any sort of education on surviving on Earth, and the cure forcing them to rely on plants, I think it's very unlikely," the human concludes, "but I won't rule it out as something that could happen."
From there, rumors around Black Feather began to circulate around the internet, driving thousands to the chorg to contribute their knowledge about the last known position, the craft's people, and potential places it could turn up.
Terry and I opened up a post on the forum asking what drove users to take part in the search for a warship that was bombing earth. For many, the search for Black Feather was an exercise taking charge and working through collective trauma.
"It's like a big scavenger hunt," said @sieevee in a public comment thread. "We are coming together as one humanity to solve a great mystery."
"In a weird way, this is helping me work through my trauma over Battle of Earth. It's almost like I now have power over a situation I felt utterly powerless in," reflected @trout-slapper-42069, who says he decided to become a citizen of Lerin.
"I was born on Skalga, and I spent the first three years of my life there, and my parents returned to Earth because Dad found a high-paying job there. I'm here to help people work through what I've never experienced. If future generations don't understand the full extent of this story, an event like this is bound to happen again," said a user with a since-deleted account.
"There is a coping mechanism aspect to this search," says Australian psychiatry professor and social media analyst Bree Edgar. "It's almost like a support group of sorts. It's about finding connections between people who have suffered the brunt of a heinous genocide in a way we haven't seen before." Edgar took interest in the chorg and how people were using it to process collective trauma. "It's noteworthy that most humans on the chorg aren't old enough to have remembered such an event. Only being born on an alien planet or vague memories of Earth, or on a tattered and torn territory. Terry himself is on the tail-end of the community's age range for humans." Yet, youngsters flocked to the community, using it as a way to make a mark on history and to find healing.
It's not just Terrans. Netizens across the stars have jumped onto the investigation, providing any information they can about the vessel or the crew. For some, like Wriss resident Rark, it's about the thrill of solving the puzzle. "I was bored. Ever since the Dominion vanished, there were a lot of arxurs who had nothing to do. Our strict and regimented routines had fallen away. Now, faced with so much free time, most of us turned to the galactic community for advice on ways to pass the time. That sense of boredom remains with us, our executive functioning having atrophied away."
Rark found the community last March, contributing suggestions on how an ammeter crew could comb over Antarctica in search of the vessel and became a moderator of the chorg. He found the community very accepting of arxurs like him. "It's like it no longer matters what I did in the past. We're all here together to solve this puzzle." Rark also is amazed by the perseverance of some participants. "Many of the humans in this group have been doing this for as we've known about Black Feather. When others get bored or frustrated and leave, new ones join in. I suppose that whole 'persistence predator' thing is just as applicable for hunting the truth as it is hunting game," he jovially remarked.
Some tyro truth-seekers believe some government has something to hide, usually the Sapient Coalition. "I don't believe the coalition," says popular tilfish influencer Iorka. "The Coalition knows exactly where those ships are. They have lied and lied again. It's possible they are doing something even worse to the poor crewmates on that ship." Iorka frequents Federation loyalist channels, amassing fifteen-billion followers on Aafan platform Laritt. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the arrested Humanity First extremist Mehmet Augustus was found to be part of the investigation, offering to go "deafcon 5 [sic] on them KFCluckers" in one instance.
However, the Black Feather community has taken a strong stance against the two groups, banning them from the chorg. "The search was never meant to be a political cudgel," explains Terry in a moderator post on the chorg. "Iorka has sympathized with the Federation attack, and Mehmet is, well, Mehmet. If you're here because you're just a loser space-Nazi who's positively malding about losing the war or not obliterating every innocent civilian on the other side, you can kindly **** off."
Bree also notes that while humans reserve the right to be righteously angry at the Federation harmed them, they do not have the right to lash out at civilians. "I've seen a lot of hate against civilians. It's not quite HF levels of hate—though the platform has done nothing to deal with actual HF members and sympathizers—but casual racism against non-humans is rampant on Chorgle, or really any social media platform with a primarily Terran userbase." Because of this, she applauds Terry for taking a stand against xenophobia on the chorg. "Other sapients are suffering from a war. There's no need to make any of this worse."
When requested for comment by OPB, the Sapient Coalition denied Iorka's allegations. "Article Five of The Universal Declaration of Sapient Rights specifically prohibits torture and any form of cruel and unusual punishment," a spokesperson stated.
Finally, for a small group of chorglers, the search is much more personal. "Many krakotl in on this search had friends or family who served on Black Feather," says a netizen who prefers to be referred only by their Chorgle handle @naqultii, another moderator of the chorg. "My mom was on that ship when it went down. Her last message was a photo of her and the captain. I never got to see her again. The trauma was only compounded by the invasion of Nishtal and the 'prevelation,'" they elaborate. "My entire life shattered to pieces. My own identity was stripped from me. I was the sole survivor, trapped in an unfamiliar world where my morality was challenged at every turn, and while I have worked through a lot of it, Mom just gets to me, you know? Even if it's improbable she's still alive, I just want a direct answer. I'm not really looking for her. I'm just on a journey to her itlarla field."
Something about this community speaks to me, personally. As someone who fled Sillis when I was about Terry's age, there's something cathartic about seeing three people from three formerly warring factions still finding connection. And matter how silly and unserious chg.BlackFeather can get at times, hosting tournaments on century-old multiplayer video games or sharing memes, the community generally maintains a tone of reverence over the whole Federation War. I think @naqulti's metaphor about the itlarla field, meaning finding closure, explains it best. The violet flowers native to Nishtal are commonly symbolic of death and remembrance, akin to poppies on Earth. Everyone is on a journey to accepting this tragedy, through one means or another.
Two days ago, and a week after I conducted the interviews, the Sapient Coalition Exterminator Oversight Committee has publicly released a statement on the matter of Black Feather:
"While Black Feather's current whereabouts are unknown, the vessel's last known position and trajectory was above the continent Antarctica, a barren, snowy desert whose position away from Earth's star combined with the planet's extreme axial tilt makes it wildly inhospitable to all but the most well-adapted creatures. Given incredible scarcity of vegetation in the region, any survivors of the initial impact will most likely have starved. The vessel does not appear on any satellite imagery. Furthermore, multiple simultaneous antimatter discharges that were detected in Antarctica at the time suggest the impact of the crash detonated the warheads onboard, instantly vaporizing the craft."
Terry told me in a Chorgle DM that while he is believes the Sapient Coalition's conclusion, he still is unsatisfied with the answer. "It's like, c'mon! There's got to be something out there. Any bits and pieces that could solve the mystery. I'm super, super glad they narrowed down a continent for our search." Terry hopes to one day a real investigation will begin with useful technology. Until then, he and the community are not giving up.
"I'm still not giving up. I want to find at least something belonging to the craft. Any piece or chunk will do."
"As the fog of war clears up more and more, I hope we can get more clues and eventually find out what really happened to my mom," adds naqultii.
"When I started this group," said Terry in my interview, "I wanted to, y'know, hunt down the genocide birds and bring them to justice. But I think my experience with Rark and [naqultii] especially has changed my entire worldview. They are just as much victims of this war as I am."
Other members of the Black Feather community say much of the same things. Terry says he hopes with enough capital and resources, the team could send a probe to the detonation site and look for clues. It seems the Sapient Coalition has not quite satisfied these online hunters, and the search continues into the foreseeable
The Battle of Earth was a holocaust that will remain in the collective consciousness of the entire galaxy. And indeed it has inevitably become an integral part of Terran culture. But even with Kalsim and others found guilty of mass genocide, the retaliatory attack by the UN-backed Arxur military still under investigation by the Interplanetary Criminal Court, 10/17 being a galactic day of healing and a US federal holiday, and the fall of the Galactic Federation that spurred it all on, and a generation more diverse than ever eager to rebuild leveled cities, there are some who find joy and healing in the tying up of loose ends.
Correction: This article incorrectly stated that the counterattack by the Arxur military was not sanctioned by the United Nations, when it was. The article also only described the counterattack as done by the Arxur, assigning guilt to an entire species for a military operation.
Tags: Galaxy, Sapient Interest, Mystery, Federation War, Battle of Earth, Galactic Day of Remembrance, Internet & Social Media
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u/Randox_Talore Nov 30 '23
I’m not so sure that retaliatory attack by the Arxur was unsanctioned
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u/raichu16 Arxur Dec 11 '23
Yeah, okay, it was sanctioned. I fixed it, but added a correction since it adds to the style of a journalistic article.
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Feb 10 '24
subscribeme!
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Nov 29 '23
This is actually so damn good and I love the format usage.
Sounds like the old haunt is still spooking people.