[CLOSED]A Shooting Star

[Thrace]

Just another shooting star. That's what the people of Firma would have initially considered the flaming thing in the sky to be. At the beginning, to the untrained eye, it could have looked like that, at least for a few moments. But.. it had suddenly appeared in the sky with a loud bang, and it was simply too big to be a shooting star. Saying that it was big was just an underestimation, as it was actually gigantic..but it was falling.. falling towards the ground. Not before long, even those who were simply looking at the sky would have realized that it was a ship.. a damaged ship, burning as it crashed through the atmosphere. It came falling down, as it was simply too heavy to be suited for atmospheric flight.. the gravity of the planet was dragging it, quickly and unavoidably, towards destruction. But where no living being would have been able to react.. the ship's automatic systems kicked in, the thrusters were activated.. and the front of the large capital ship was raised a little, just before it brutally crashed on the ground. The intervention of the ship's automatic systems saved it from a catastrophic destruction...but the crash was still incredibly violent. Without any of its shields online, the ship hit the ground with its extended left hangar deck, and the sheer shock of the impact was enough to break it apart from the larger body of the vessel, throwing it in the air, as it crashed on the ground, somewhere in the distance. The rest of the ship landed less violently, but it still rolled over a few times, until it finally stopped in a more normal position, burning, damaged, leaving destruction behind it. And the only clue about its identity was formed by the two large inscriptions on the ship's hangar decks, one broken where it had crashed, and the other one still with the ship. Letters and names that would have probably meant nothing for the natives..
CMS HINDENBURG -HEK-H1

Command and Information Center
The crew members, those who were still alive, slowly tried to stand back up, under the dim red emergency lights of the ship's main deck. Among them was a young girl, or as some would say, a young woman, standing out among the rest of the crew members. Her left hand was wounded, with a shrapnel like piece of metal piercing her metal arm, and blood stained the mostly dark blue uniform in red, even if it was slightly matching the red accents of the same uniform, completed by the blue-red armband that represented a flag, with the twelve stars surrounding a larger, twelve-pointed star in the middle. For those who knew it, it was the classic female officer's uniform of the Kriegsflotte, but for anyone else, it was simply a uniform with vibrant colors, complete with a tailcoat, a white shirt, a red skirt, military boots and dark blue overknee socks. Her long, blonde hair was messy and stained in the blood of others, and her pale, white skin looked weird in the crimson lights of the large room. She blinked a few times, as her dark blue eyes were trying to accommodate themselves with the light..but in front of her, a still working holographic screen showed a rather alarming red-yellow signal.
KRITISCHER SYSTEMFEHLER .....NEUSTART.....¹

The blonde girl suddenly started to cough, before she looked at the screen again. "Wo zum Teufel sind wir?.."², she murmured, but no one answered her question..

1-CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE...REBOOTING 2-Where the hell are we?

 

[RIPSaidCone]

Marion County Sheriff Department
1:02:53PM
9/6/43
Car 27

With what had just been an ordinary day for the two police officers; Mendoza and Ackerson had suddenly been turned upside down. The uniformed pair of men sitting in the front two seats of their patrol car, casually watching the road ahead of them as they had been stuck with possibly the worst duty of all; traffic duty. Ackerson sighed and took a sip from his bottle of water, it being a particularly hot day for the small town of Marion, Arkana, though with said town being located in the middle of an otherwise empty desert landscape that wasn't really a stretch of the imagination. With the nearest major city San Para being around 40 miles away there wasn't much to do here, as was evident with even the law enforcement. Mendoza groaned quietly in annoyance and rested his arm on the opened window side of the car, looking outwards towards some of the nearby stores and asking absent-mindedly to his partner. "You want a soda or something?" To which the officer sitting next to him nodded and replied, "Sure, get me a Professor Benton, original flavor not that vanilla shit." Mendoza nodded, getting out of the patrol car as he made a slow beeline towards the convience store across the street, utility belt and keys on said belt making the typical metallic jingling sound iconic with law enforcement as he made his way to the store.

That had been at least until a sudden boom was heard from above, the officer covering his ears as a shadow soon enveloped him and the surrounding area, looking up as he saw..a ship? Of some kind guzzling smoke in all directions and on fire in other parts come crashing down over him and into the nearby desert, that was the Sagreo Plains, no one lived there fortunately as there wasn't much to do with the land however the sheer scale of that ship was enough to tell the man that this was not going to be a normal day. Running back towards his patrol car, he got in, Ackerson looking to him as he started the engine and turned the car sirens on. "What the fuck was that?" He asked in a near-yell, the cop car speeding off with sirens blaring in direction of the crashed ship as Mendoza replied. "How should I know!?" He grabbed the radio at the front of the car and held it up to his mouth as he spoke into it. />"Dispatch, this is car 27 responding to a 10-33, repeat a 10-33 on Sangreo Passway. Requesting all available units to Sangreo Passway, over."</ the patrol car sped down the empty and incredibly long desert road with only two lanes in it, approaching the crashed ship at a rapid pace as it was close to arriving.

/>"Car 27, Dispatch. Requesting 10-77, over."</ The woman on the other end of the radio replied, Mendoza tapping and holding onto the button at the side of his radio again as he said, />"Dispatch, Car 27. 10-77 is less than one minute, over."</ The patrol car arrived at the scene of the ship's crash, the two men within the car gazing up at the size of the tremendous ship. The car coming to a stop as both officers got out, Ackerson grabbing his shotgun from the back of the car and Mendoza keeping one hand over his pistol holster as the two stood by their car, observing the ship and blue and red lights still flashing. />"Dispatch, Mendoza. We've arrived on scene, waiting for back-up."</ The officer spoke into the radio on his left breast pocket, the woman replying that additional cars were en-route and soon enough they were. With multiple wheeled vehicles speeding down the road and approaching the ship, blue and red lights flashing and sirens screeching as they stopped and other uniformed men got out, pistols and shotguns ready as they stood around the ship, forming a perimeter around the mysterious object.

The Marion County police chief, Captain. Derek Hargin stood at one of the patrol cars. Taking a megaphone and lifting it up to his face as he spoke into it with a tone of authority and force not unfamiliar with law enforcement, he had a thick Southern accent and was a well-built man. "This is the Marion County Sheriff's Department, your craft has been surrounded. If there are any survivors, come out with your hands up and you will not be harmed."

Spoiler: Police vehicles

Spoiler: Police uniforms

​

 

[Thrace]

CMS HINDENBURG -HEK-H1

Command and Information Center

Even if blood was slowly dripping on the floor from the wound in her arm, the blonde girl took her place in front of the nearest command station, with the systems of the ship having finally rebooted. Colonial ships had complex internal networks, normally interconnected with those of other military vessel in what was known as the Colonial Defense Network. But the Second Secession War and the failure of the network had created major changes in how the Colonies perceived AI's and network systems, and the violent contact that the Colonies had with the AI race known as the Acruani had only increased their fears. As such, Colonial network systems were often fragment, with various segments and failsafe mechanisms that had to ensure that the probability of other factions hacking their systems was as close to zero as possible.. but that also complicated once simple task, like rebooting the ship's network. But with that done, the crew was once again able to control their ship. As soon as the systems came back online, a general scan for damage and issues was done. As the injured crew members were slowly taken to the infirmary area, the ones who were still able to fight took their position. But the situation looked pretty bad.

Under normal circumstances, a ship as resistant as a Colonial battle-carrier should have been able to resist an impact of this size. But the damage that the ship had suffered in the battle had already affected its structural identity, and the Colonial Military Ship Hindenburg had crashed on this mysterious planet while damaged, at full speed, and without any shields online. Important structural damage had been detected, and it seemed that the left hangar had been ripped off during the crash.. caused by the fact that while in a hurry to run away, the Hindeburg had jumped without having time to retract the two large hangars. The right hangar had somehow survived.. but since the ship had initially hit the ground on its left side, the left hangar had been simply broken apart by the sheer force of the impact. Let's not even talk about the rest of the damage, that paralyzed its engines, its weapon systems.. the situation looked pretty grim.

But that's where the discipline of the crew kicked in. For a crash on an unknown planet, certain procedures had to be followed. The ship immediately started to send out SOS messages through the network that quickly accelerated them, but even so, it was clear that help wasn't going to just jump after them immediately. The nations of Firma could have been able to intercept those messages..but they were very well encrypted. And even if any of them would have had the time to attempt to break those codes, the final results would have simply been a series of "Krypter! Krypter! Krypter!" messages, followed by series of numbers and letters. There wasn't anything that would have made sense to them.

Next, they had to take care of the ship's reactors. Ships as big as the standard battle carriers of the Kriegsflotte required an enormous amount of energy, something that the Colonial Opilium-based Nuclear Fusion Reactors were more than able to provide, but after a crash, losing control of the reactors was a dark possibility. As such, the crew immediately put them into a forced hibernation, relying only on the backup generators and reactors for the energy necessary for the ship to work. With that out of the way...it remained for the Colonies to see where exactly the hell they were. With other officers taking care of the load of problems that existed in the four kilometer long behemoth, the blue eyed girl opened a screen to see what was outside. Of course, in the meanwhile, the crew was frenetically checking the entire ships, with entire decks being on lock down, or damaged, with dead and wounded people everywhere..in such a large ship, there wasn't much they could do. But just like the medical and the emergency teams were doing their job in the gigantic ship.. the officers on the main deck had to do their own.

But what they saw confused every last person present in the CIC at the moment. They saw..that they were in a desert. Nothing too strange about that.. but their attention was suddenly attracted by the things that formed a perimeter around their ship.. many small things.. that some of them recognized as.. cars? Had it not been for the KOBOL AI system of the ship, the crew members would have believed that they were seeing some sort of an old movie, after all, most human worlds had abandoned stuff like that for nearly a millennium.. and then they noticed uniform...with some really, really weird uniforms. The AI once again vaguely identified them, pulling out images from its archives..and only then did the officers assume that those people over there seemed to belong to some sort of a law enforcement agency, but why were the inscription on their cars in Galactic Standard? And on top of that.. one of the people spoke in some sort of a thing that was supposed to amplify his voice, not that the ship's sensors would have required it to understand what he was saying.. but they way he said it.. confused the Colonials even more.

Of course, the crew members would have recognized it even without the AI..after all, all of them had watched at least a propaganda video about evil Terran soldiers in their lives..and the accent in which the man spoke.. well, it was nearly the same. And despite the weird situation they were in, the words of the mysterious man made some of the Colonials laugh.. after all, if what they saw through their sensors was true.. than those guys from outside were threatening a vessel made to resist nuclear strikes.. with some really, really, really primitive guns. But then..a thought came to many of them. After all, the Human Colonial Alliance controlled most of the former Terran worlds right now.. could this be just a complicated ruse? It was something that they couldn't ignore.

The officer turned around, as the ship model of the Hindeburg, a young girl with blonde hair and gray eyes, wearing the same uniform as the humans, saluted, ready to receive orders. "We need to lock down the damaged areas. Have Star Guards ready if the bogeymen out there attempt to board the ship. Prepare the weapon systems that can be still used. See what the damage to the right hangar is, perhaps we can still send some birds in the air. Continue trying to contact the Oberkommando.", the blue eyed officer ordered pretty quickly, while the ship model simply saluted again. "Jawohl, Frau Kapitän!"

Trying to ignore the pain, the woman now returns to the station, ready to try to speak to the outside. The ship ensured that her voice was going to be heard much louder than that amplified by the measly megaphone.
"To.. the...Marion...County...Sheriff's...Department", her voice responded in a Galactic Standard with a clear Colonial accent, as she hesitated a little while pronouncing some of those weird words. "This is the CMS Hindenburg of the War Fleet of the Federated Colonies, callsign HEK-H1. Unfortunately, we must refuse your proposal. As we do not know where we are, we will remain inside of our vessel. We do not have hostile intentions, but our protocol forbids us from surrendering to unknown foreign powers. Over."

 

[RIPSaidCone]

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[Thrace]

CMS HINDENBURG -HEK-H1

Command and Information Center​

The situation was becoming more and more complicated, as it seemed that whatever nation that was controlling the lands on which their ship had crashed was reacting. Firstly by bringing more policemen, then by bringing more advanced policemen, before finally bringing in what looked like military force. Not before long, the ship was completely surrounded, and an entire city, or a military base as some said, was formed around it. Hours passed, but despite that rather impressive mobilization of forces, the crew still wasn't feeling threatened. They had faith in their ship, after all, even damaged, it was supposed to resist forces far greater than what these people had been gathering around them. Of course, they had no intention to start any hostilities...but if it would come for it, they were ready to fight until death.. even if it meant that they had to use the remains of their nuclear arsenal.

Still, back to the ship, the crew did not remain motionless as the hours passed. They tried to repair what they could, a big effort being put in possibly trying to bring the FTL drives back online, but with no avail. They had more success in restoring some of the weapon systems, and at around the same time when the Heimarkians had brought in jets, some of the dual-pointed laser-kinetic defense batteries of the Hindenburg were activated, together with one or two missile systems. They were kept ready, but the Colonials had no intention to fire them, not unless provoked. They also had a limited success in the right hangar deck, where the crew managed to put some of the Wyvern fighters into launching position. If it would have ever come down to it.. the Hindeburg would be ready to strike back. And then of course, the corridors and sections through which anyone from outside could have entered the ship were sealed, and Star Guard units were placed behind them, ready to stop any attempt to board the ship before it would have been able to do anything. SOS messages continued to be sent, but with the AI system busy with other massive tasks around the ship, the encryption level was still pretty low, which of course, had allowed the Heimarkians to decrypt them. And of course, the wounded crew members had been taken to the infirmary, and the casualties had been counted. This painted a pretty grim picture about the crash..but the rest of the crew was ready to fight, no matter what.

The biggest question however, continued to be.. where the hell were they? The sensors and all the data that they were gathering about the natives definitively put them pretty back in history. Their technology was more than outdated, and judging from their response to the situation.. it seemed that they were not an FTL civilization. Or at least, they were one that had still not made any contact with other civilization. Or.. well, perhaps this was still just an elaborated trick made by the HCA..

The tension continued to built up, until finally, the people from the exterior sent another message. Another human stepped forward, with a slightly larger megaphone this time..and they demanded an envoy. The Colonials hesitated.. but the commanding officer, the blonde haired girl, was pretty determined to avoid bloodshed. "I'll go.", she said to the other officers, humans and aliens alike. "Are you sure, Frau Kapitän? What if it is a trap?", another officer, a blue alien with tentacles, replied, hesitantly. But she had already made her decision. "The HCA wouldn't have needed a trap. They could have just attacked us at any time. Setting up such a trap would make no sense.. as such, we should believe that this is indeed, a civilization that has not yet reached FTL status. Whether it is human, or it just looks human remains to be seen..but it would be much easier if we'll send a human outside to talk to them. It is my duty as the captain."

Not before long, her voice was heard again by those from the outside, still louder than whatever megaphone they would try to use. "This is Captain Retia Wedelkind, of the War Fleet of the Federal Defense Forces of the Federated Colonies. As we said, we have no hostile intentions. In this instance, it seems that I am the highest ranked officer here, as such, I would represent my government officially. As a sign of our goodwill, I am going to come down as an envoy. But I will have to warn you, if you or your men try to do anything tricky, my men will be authorized to use the entire arsenal under their command, including nuclear warheads. I hope that we can do this peacefully. Out."

That was followed by a tense period of silence.. until finally, one of the sealed doors opened. It was at one of the lower levels, which allowed the people coming from the inside to step on the ground as easily as possible. The sensors had already indicated that the planet had a breathable atmosphere, as such, no big precautions were taken from that point of view. The first to exit the ship were four soldiers, wearing nanosuits that helped them blend in the environment, but not enough to make them invisible, that would have just scared the natives. The soldiers took cover behind the various wrecked parts that were laying on the ground right around the ship, but of course, they did not fire. And then, two other people appeared.

The first was the blonde haired girl from before. Her arm was bandaged, but her uniform was still intact, and she seemed to be unarmed, besides from a clearly ceremonial sword that the protocol forced her to have, as an officer of the Kriegsflotte, and her uniform from earlier was completed by a dark blue officer's peaked hat, completed with an emblem of the twelve stars and the twelve pointed star of the Colonies. She was followed by the ship model, that wore pretty much the same uniform, and no one would have been able to distinguish her from a normal human being. In her hands, she was holding a small pole like thing, with the blue-red flag of the Colonies on it. The two women made a few steps forward, but they remained next to their soldiers. Retia however soon started to speak, her voice still amplified the ship. "Greetings, Lieutenant-General.", the Colonial officer said, still in a clear Colonial accent. "An envoy, just as you requested. Would it be possible to.establish more refined communications without any shooting?"

 

[RIPSaidCone]

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[Thrace]

Perhaps, from a military point of view, it would have been safer for the Colonials to deploy some forces around their own ship. The Hindenburg was a vessel designed for space combat, so it did not have the surface fighting capabilities that the vessels of the Orbital Forces of the Bundeswehr hand. But still, it was by no means defenseless. Its Star Guards were trained to fight both in space and on the surface of planets, and its fighters were more than able to perform admirably during atmospheric flights. But from a diplomatic point of view.. deploying such forces could have easily led to an escalation of this already tense situation. And plus, initial scans of the weaponry of this natives led to the AI to the simple conclusion that for now, the ship had nothing to fear. The Hindenburg's main batteries would have been enough to take care of the military buildup around them, and the nuclear arsenal that the Hindenburg, as a capital ship of the Colonies had, was more than enough to ensure that the natives were going to think twice before attacking. Of course, that did not mean that the damaged ship was going to be able to fight against the entirety of the native military forces.. but there was no need to act, at least for now.

As they waited for some sort of response, the two women simply remained standing like that. Even if the natives wouldn't have been able to tell that neither of them was fully human..it seemed that at least some of the native soldiers were enjoying the appearance of the two Colonial women. One of them was a Genome user, and the other one was an android, but no one could deny their beauty, of course. In terms of more details about their uniforms, both women had shoulder patches on both of their arms, with the stars of the Colonies on their right arms, and on their left arms, of course, even if it was only visible for the ship model that wasn't wounded, they had the emblem of the Kriegsflotte, and the emblem of Battlegroup von Hindenburg beneath, a black eagle holding a planet like sphere in its claws, with the letters KG-HEK-H1 on it, the military unit that was normally under the command of the CMS Hindenburg.

But then, the native officer stepped forward, and of course, as a precaution, the Star Guards behind the two women aimed their rifles, both at him and at his soldiers, but the two women maintained their calm, and as before, Retia was the one to speak. "Well, it would be rash for us to not take at least a few measures of protection. But rest assured, General, the solders over there are all humans, and they will not fire unless I order them to. And it is relieving to find out that your government is at least willing to negotiate, as I said, we have no hostile intentions. I would say that we come in peace.. but that would be a little too clichéd." The Colonial woman sighed. "As I said, as long as you don't try anything tricky, we're more than willing to discuss matters. But, Lieutenant Paula Beneckendorff will have to come with me.", Retia told the native general, clearly referring at the woman behind her. "After you, Herr General."

 

[RIPSaidCone]

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[Thrace]

"You can never be too cautious, you know.", the Colonial Captain replied calmly, as she and the female lieutenant behind her followed the Lieutenant General. "Our troops are certainly not entirely human, but it is a basic precaution, we do not know how other human civilizations will react upon seeing actual aliens. In fact, if it would't have been for this crash, it is extremely unlikely that the Colonies would have attempted to make contact with your civilization. Not until you discovered faster-than-light travel, at least..."

As the Colonial women followed the native officer, they were of course, carefully observing everything around them, and Paula was of course, recording everything. Their civilization was weird.. but it was certainly interesting. They were humans, and if one were to ignore their lack of FTL technology, they seemed to be on the same level of technology as the early era of the human interstellar civilization, the early years of the United Governments of Earth and their first colonization programs around the Sol System.

Eventually though, they reached a dark green military tent, simply equipped, with a few tables and chairs, and what looked like some primitive vending machines. There was even a flat screen, showing what seemed to be a news broadcast, a broadcast about their crash.. which wasn't all that surprising. If this was a civilization that had never made contact with any interstellar nations before.. then the news of an alien spaceship crashing were probably spreading like wildfire. The two women then took their seats.. while Retia prepared herself to answer to the Lieutenant General's questions.

"We were returning from a mission, when we were attacked by ships of the Human Colonial Alliance. Despite the Armistice that exists between the Federated Colonies, our nation, and the H.C.A., the Alliance uses unmarked, privateer vessels to ambush and attack our forces whenever possible. We were outnumbered, coming from a two months long patrol mission near the Andromeda. And despite our best efforts, we took a beating. We decided to jump away, which happens automatically, the system jumps away to the nearest safe area. And the heavy damage we received during that battle somehow caused a glitch in the FTL driver system. That's how we somehow ended up right in this planet's atmosphere, and without prior preparation, a Colonial battlecarrier is too heavy for atmospheric flight. So, as you have noticed... we crashed. And if you don't mind..we would love to know what this planet is. Where are we?"

 

[RIPSaidCone]

"Your caution is understandable though given the situation you may notice that our's is even more understandable." The Lieutentant General replied, his interest growing immensely at the information he was being given. So it turned out that not all of the crew aboard the crashed vessel were Human, which was certainly something to note, an extraterrestrial faction comprised of multiple species? He was no professor in sociology but that must have been quite the achievement to get multiple species working and living with one another, if these Humans really were like the ones living on Firma then it must have been difficult just for them to work together although so far they all appeared to be of the same cultural group, that group seemingly being Anholtan, or at least sharing an eerie amount of similarities with them. Everything from the woman's accent to the name of her ship. Maybe the people on Firma had originally descended from these new arrivals? It boggled the General's mind to even consider the fact that there was a slim possibility that he could have held blood relation to some other human living halfway across the galaxy, if the theory was true that was. Though now he had the opportunity to ask.

And soon it wasn't just the presence of non-human life that he had been notified of, but the existence of faster-than-light travel too. Shaking his head with a light smile, he replied. "So FTL travel exists, if I were one of our scientists I'd be hot and bothered right now. Speaking of which I've held off our scientists for the time being since they'd never let you leave if they were allowed to start asking questions. As for how our civilization would react to the presence of alien life.." He paused, contemplating his answer, this was the first real conversation that would be had between someone from the Federated Colonies and someone from the planet Firma, he had to make at least somewhat of a good impression. "We're a world of many different kinds of people. Some of us will react with joy, others with fear, some with anger. Right now my government is controlling the flow of information to the media to try and stop any panic from starting. Speaking of which, would you be willing to make a statement to the media outlets of our world? If my government deems that a wise decision that is."

Even though his own curiosity at this alien--yet familiar visitor was overwhelming, the General still knew that he had to keep a professional tone to the conversation they were having. Truth be told, in his childhood the General had been a big fanboy of sci-fi movies and comic books and so being the man to initiate first contact with an advanced alien civilization was--well a dream come true to an extent. But he had to be professional about this. And now he was getting an explanation from the Captain about just how their impressive ship had managed to crash land in the middle of the desert seemingly at random, which was then confirmed by the woman's words. It had been a random and unplanned crash landing, which made things smoother diplomatically.

"Human Colonial Alliance?" He questioned, sitting up more in his chair. "So there are multiple nationstates across our galaxy run by humans?" Despite the very alien story he was being told, the General actually knew the Captain's pain a lot better than she would think, giving an understanding nod at her story. "I know exactly the kind of shadow warfare you're describing, during my own military service I've had opposing forces dress in unmarked uniforms and use unmarked vehicles so that their commanders have complete deniability of them ever engaging my forces. It's frustrating to say the least. Knowing that your crash was random and unplanned will definitely sooth things with my government, since they aren't too happy about the public shitstorm your appearance has caused, knowing it was on accident will take the blame off of you and make interaction a lot more friendly." He took a breath at the question he had been asked before continuing.

"As for this planet, this is Firma. A terrestrial world with an immensely high ability to sustain life and dozens of different bioregions, it currently has a population of 19 billion humans and around 9.9 million different species on it. We're divided into different nationstates with many different cultures, ethnicities and religions, the United Republics of Heimarkia, the nation I represent and the one you crashed in is currently the most powerful nation in the world and what we call a global superpower. I think that should be enough, is there anything else you want to ask about our people?"​

 

[Thrace]

"Of course, the caution on your side is perfectly understandable, lieutenant general.", the Colonial captain replied calmly. "The Colonies have always considered that a first contact scenario would be really problematic for the native nation, which is why we have been trying to avoid such scenarios. Not because of arrogance, or because of a selfish desire to protect our interests, but because we know from our experience that such first contacts often change the entire existence of the native nation." The woman sighed. "However, such scenarios can still happen, in the most unexpected of ways.. " After a moment of silence, the captain continued to speak. "Yes, FTL travel does exist. There are multiple ways to travel at FTL speeds, actually. The first interstellar human state was actually paralyzed by a general failure of the first FTL system used by our race. But that's a story for another time, I suppose. I will of course, have to contact my government before we can share technological secrets." The blue eyed woman smiled, before she returned to her normal, serious expression. "If a statement on my side can help you and your government, I can do it. Mixed reactions are perfectly understandable for your people, but I believe that the message that we should get across is that the Federated Colonies have absolutely no intention to be hostile to the nations of this world, or to infringe on your sovereignty in any way. As long as no conflict erupts between us, the rights of your nations are guaranteed by the Articles of Colonization, the constitution of the Bundesrepublik."

The captain of course, hesitated for a little, before she started to speak again. "Yes, there are multiple states in our galaxies which belong to the human race. The current Human Colonial Alliance is a human supremacist theocracy, vaguely inspired by the authoritarian and unitary human state that existed long ago, back when most humans were a part of the same nation. It's quite ironic actually. The Federated Colonies broke away from the old H.C.A. before it collapsed, and now the current H.C.A. is a separatist, rebellious state which has broken away from the Federation. The undeclared war between us and them is indeed frustrating, but it something that we have to do, for as long as the new H.C.A. refuses to accept our calls for peace. Of course, we have to apologize for causing this entire chaos, but we hope that your government will understand that this wasn't our fault. A slight error of calculation and we would have probably jumped right in the middle of your system's star."

A few more moments of silence followed, with the Colonial woman seeming to think about an answer. "Well..about your people. Of course, we can't say anything for sure without a proper DNA analysis.. but the idea of a human race evolving on this planet completely separately from the rest of the humans in the known universe is.. improbable, to say at least. As such.. I hope that you understand that it's possible for your people here on Firma to be connected, one way or the other. And considering the old dialect of Galactic Standard in which you are speaking, and your technological level.. I can probably pinpoint that connection even without any other clues."