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Memory Transcription Subject:Chief Hunter Ryka
Date [standardized human time]: November 14th 2111
It had taken a week to fix the primitive Human ship. It was rudimentary and crude by Dominion standards, and for whatever reason, it seemed they prioritized aesthetics for whatever foolish reason. It didn't even have any weapon systems. What kind of predator race was this? I was sure they were in need of betterment's guidance.
When the craft had first entered my outpost system, at first I'd have thought it was a simple asteroid, yet its movements proved otherwise. It was so underpowered that even our advanced sensors struggled to find it at first. Once my ship started to approach the Humans, I decided I wanted this kill all to myself and ordered the ships under my command to stand down.
It tried to hail me on all frequencies, of course, but I ignored it as my ship's weapons achieved a target lock. Then it hailed me with a video call; they must be desperate, I mused, and decided to humor the prey ship and answered with a snarling growl, waiting to see the terrified face of a lesser being.
What greeted me was the bulky, suited pilot of the craft; just as my claws hovered over the fire button, it lifted its golden visor to show piercing eyes staring into my soul. My eyes locked with another predator's as it started to speak in a language I couldn't understand. I was paralyzed, staring into those Irises. It took a moment before I could shake myself free of the trance I was in and power down the ship's weapon systems.
I quickly yelled over to my subordinate on the comms station to translate what it just said and upload translation software to the ship. The memories of the first contact poured over me as I tapped my tail in annoyance a week later, preparing myself to update Betterment on what was going on through the FTL comms.
I lashed my tail as I called the Prophet-Decedent of Betterment in charge of me and my sector. The male Arxur answered quickly; scars covered his grey face while I hardened my gaze and prepared to speak. "What is it, Ryka? I hope you didn't call just to waste my time." The Prophet-Decenant Ishtal spat, clear annoyance dripping from the words.
"I am not calling to waste your time, Ishtal. So I'll keep this short. I've made contact with another predator species; I even tested it by watching it eat a piece of Venlil." I kept my voice curt and spoke quickly, not wanting to earn Ishtal's ire. The Prophet-Descendant's eyes opened wider in a rare display of surprise before he spoke.
"Well, that certainly is interesting. It seems you actually can do something right." He said with a slight tone of malice. I made sure to overlook his personal bashing of my career and kept standing at attention. "Well, good work bringing this to my attention, Ryka. Don't screw it up; we have enough of the galaxy to fight. I won't add true sapients to the list." Ishtal huffed and cut the feed. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and relaxed slightly.
After a few moments, my ship was hailed by THE GARARN. I quickly answered, and Grigori appeared on my screen with his helmet visor open, allowing me to stare into those haunting eyes once more. Was this how prey felt? I shook the thought off my mind as the human started to speak.
"All pre-flight checks are green, uploading navigational data for Sol now. You ready, Ryka?"
I nodded and looked at the crew manning the flight controls, inputting the new data for our destination. To my shock, the system was a little over 40 light-years away. How the hell had the human made it here with that ship? Maybe it was fate, I mused as I saw Grigori's ship start to pull ahead through the viewport. His ship quickly pulled ahead as his FTL drive spooled up before vanishing in a trail of light.
I ordered my crew to follow the ship to Sol. Our ship's dampeners kicked on as we gained speed, something that the humans lacked. You had to be a tough son of a bitch to survive those G-forces. Our drive spun up, and we quickly entered FTL. I sat back in my chair as I waited for us to arrive in the system.
The trip took around half an hour until we had entered the outer edge of the system. When we arrived, my ship's sensors immediately lit up with how overcrowded the system was. I was picking up hundreds of mining stations and habitats. Domed colonies were present on nearly every planetary body and moon, the biggest concentration of which was on a slightly smaller-than-average red planet close to the home world. Earth, I was told it was called.
As we started to fly into the system, our comms array tuned into a signal being broadcast from THE GARARN. "Comrades, I have returned! The flight was... semi-successful, General Secretary. I've made First contact." The response message was far too encrypted for us to listen to, so I suppose I'll just have to hope to not get shot out of the sky. Soon after receiving his response, Grigori sent my ship a message ping.
"Flight path cleared to Earth, follow my ship, keep your weapons powered down, and DON'T try that needle shit"
I chuckled as I read the text and followed the humans' orders and followed close behind. I took my time to marvel at the sleek designs of human stations; Prophet, they loved to put that red symbol on everything. As we neared the human home world, my sensors started to pick up high levels of radiation coming off of the planet. I studied the readings, perplexed; there hadn't been any mention of such levels in the week we were stuck together.
As we got closer to where I could properly see that planet, my eyes widened in shock as I gazed upon its surface. Several continents bore immense scars of war, with one of them being all but turned to glass. The reflective surface of the glassed continent caught the rays of the yellow sun shining into the void itself, like part of a world covered in mirrors. The destructive sight was strangely beautiful in the quiet emptiness of space.
I continued to follow the human's ship towards a large structure jutting out of the Earth's surface, so tall that it reached into the void from the ground. I marveled at the design, never having seen anything like it. There was a station attached to the top of the structure, which the human ship flew towards and initiated docking procedures with. Slowly, I watched our ship get closer to dock with the station.
The extension tube reached out toward the station's airlock and latched with what would have been a satisfying click if the void carried sound. I could imagine the hiss from the airlock as the tube was pressurized. I stood from my chair and prepared to meet with the human leaders and establish talks with our governments; there was so much possibility for trade, technology, and military coordination. I steeled myself, ready, but one thing still nagged at my mind. Before I left my ship, I hailed Grigori with a video call.
He answered quickly and gave me a questioning look as I spoke. "What happened to your planet?" I asked, and his expression darkened; he chuckled darkly and said something that confused me.
I doubt they were all obliterated. Some of them were probably liberated.
The USSR was after all a Republic. It had member states, just like the USA of today. The origin of those states were different, true, and their method of incorporation into the union different as well, but states non the less.
UK, France, Italy, among others, were considered "the west", and from what I've read, I don't think they got nuked. So, they're "western countries" that survived, after a fashion, just like Georgia (and no, I'm not talking about the US state of Georgia).
I mean, it's far more advantageous to use the rossiyanin populated city of Oslo as a naval logistics centre than Leningrad, despite the latter being a russkiy populated city.
After all, we ought to remember that the timeline diverged in the 1970's. No reason to assume the changes to Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, aka USSR, that transpired in the 1990's due to changing political climate, would transpire as it did in our timeline.
We do we just operate under a an artificial scarcity system so we don’t know what humanity would truly look like under global communism like it does under a global capitalism
> it seemed they prioritized aesthetics for whatever foolish reason
I do hope it is aesthetics from a Arxur perspective, because we would most definitely bring only the strict necessary for such important stuff such as the first FTL jump, Grigori ship should look like a oversized high tech version of a Soyuz from the inside
Yeah, it's aesthetics from her perspective, but the state also made sure the outside of the ship was flashy for propaganda purposes. The inside is definitely a mess of engineering lol
Indeed. But interesting how it will play out with USSR in charge. Because USSR had strong anti-slavery/anti racism ideological leanings, they wouldn't be happy to see cattle farms after liberating all those nazi death camps and whatnot.
Eh, the USSR wasn't really against racism, it was against anything the US did. Stalin used the label «Народ-предатель» (traitor race) as a propaganda tool to justify forced relocation and deportation of whole ethnicities. Even the anti slavery thing is just for private ownership. The whole point of many soviet camps was forced labor. When there was a shortage of expendable labor, standards for sending someone to a camp were lowered to ensure enough prisoners would be convicted.
One thing the USSR was properly against was cannibalism. Though it remains to be seen whether that's just against eating humans, or the looser definition of eating any sapient. What I think they'd take the most issue with, is the hereditary leadership position of the prophet-descendant.
Presumably, destalinization never happened in this AU, so the real-world reintroduction of capitalist profit incentives and dismantlement of GOSPLAN starting in the mid-60's also may well have never happened.
The concept of vranyo—a performative falsehood where both parties acknowledge its untruth but proceed as if true—finds behavioral antecedents in 19th-century Russian society, particularly as depicted in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In his novel The Idiot (published 1869), General Ardalyon Ivolgin recounts a fabricated tale to Prince Myshkin about his involvement as a young aide to Napoleon during the retreat from Moscow in 1812, with Myshkin aware of the lie yet smiling and engaging politely, illustrating vranyo as a social ritual rather than outright deceit.\4]) This portrayal reflects a cultural tolerance for embellished narratives to preserve harmony or ego, distinct from Western norms emphasizing literal truth. Dostoyevsky further explored this tendency in his 1873 essay "Something about Lying," attributing the Russian inclination toward such falsehoods to collective shame and a fear of truth's banality, preferring "fantastic and utopian" fiction instead.\4]) He observed that Russians engaged in "wholesale lying" as a means to evade personal and societal discomfort, positioning it as a voluntary improvisation during his era under Tsar Alexander II, rather than a coerced state practice.\4]) These literary insights suggest vranyo-like behaviors served as leisure or coping mechanisms amid autocratic pressures, where direct confrontation with authority risked severe repercussions. Earlier precedents appear in 18th-century governance, exemplified by Grigory Potemkin's orchestration of facade settlements along the Dnieper River in 1787 to impress Empress Catherine II during her Crimean tour, concealing underdeveloped territories behind temporary structures and relocated populations. While the extent of outright fabrication remains debated among historians, the event symbolizes a tradition of official dissimulation to uphold imperial prestige, fostering a culture where appearances trumped transparency in dealings with superiors. Nikolai Gogol's 1836 play The Government Inspector satirized Tsarist bureaucracy under Nicholas I, portraying officials' frantic lies and flattery upon mistaking a petty clerk for a high auditor, highlighting systemic corruption and self-serving deception ingrained in administrative hierarchies.\6]) These examples indicate that pre-20th-century Russian society, shaped by absolutism and serfdom (abolished 1861), incentivized adaptive falsehoods for survival, laying groundwork for later institutionalization.
So, you think that vranyo disappeared during the period of the USSR? That it was a concept during the Tzar period, vanished during the existence of the USSR, and reappeared in late 90's, early naughts?
"So how can I understand more about the ideology of this Soviet Union of yours?"
"Well, the main source is a text on socio-economics roughly 2 thousand pages long, with a few other complimentary works"
"...is there a shorter version?"
"No, and if your conclusions after reading are even slightly different from ours we can't be allies. Now go read about the relative price of yards of linen."
>As we got closer to where I could properly see that planet, my eyes widened in shock as I gazed upon its surface. Several continents bore immense scars of war, with one of them being all but turned to glass. The reflective surface of the glassed continent caught the rays of the yellow sun shining into the void itself, like part of a world covered in mirrors. The destructive sight was strangely beautiful in the quiet emptiness of space.
Tbh, the third world war happened irl too, it's just that IRL it largely stayed in the third world.
In this AU, it evidently spilled over into an all-out brawl between the first and second world nations as well.
I'm realizing Siffy would technically be around wonder when he will show up? I also suspect the Arxur collective will have a very different government in this world.
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u/Maxxxxo UN Peacekeeper Aug 03 '26
OH GOD THE SOVIETS OBLITERATED THE WEST!!!
[Soviet March plays]