NEW NORM GROUP: HISTORY MERCHANTS Yeah, I still remember the first time I heard it. I had the input coming over the longship's speakers. Now, a lot of deepscouts do that, but its not usually for the reason they tell the tourists. Almost all of what comes into a scout's receiver array is junk data, and when you find something that might indicate a habitable system or valuable resource, 95% of the time, there's really nothing the human ear can pick up in how the data sounds, it's just a slightly different hum or crackle. We don't "navigate by the songs of the stars" like that one awful vidshow said. Ugh. Sappy. But who am I to talk? There are a few reasons why we do it, though. The first is to be sure that the receivers are actually always online. I don't know how many times novices have come back at only half data capacity because somewhere during their tour the cutout switches turned on when a pulsar flashed or they angled too close to a heat source or an ion field. A lot of the reason is just to be sure you're actually getting the data you're supposed to be getting. Also, it's nice to have some sound out there in deep space, other than the creaking of the struts when you slide past a star or the whine of the storage drives. Of course, the last reason is because we want to hear something. Maybe it's that 5% of habitable systems that have an audible infospike. Maybe it's the possibility that we might hear another new race, like the Qin. Maybe we're afraid we'll hear a new race. Whatever the reason, the best deepscouts always have the receivers piped through the speakers. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was a no-name system about 165, 170 out. I don't remember exactly how far. The alarm had brought me out in the middle of a sleepcycle - the ship had picked up a meteor swarm up ahead and needed me to bring her through. Which I did. It wasn't bad, a few close shaves, a few microstrikes. But sure enough, halfway through the speakers went dead, and I filled the silence with cursing - a cable must have gotten clipped. Once I was out the other side, I hit the diagnostics. Fortunately, it wasn't bad, just a simple EVA op to fix it. The silence filled up the ship like syrup dripping from the empty speakers. I put on my vac suit, my St. Christoper's medal, and my maintenance rig and drifted out the top airlock. The hull was battered and patched, of course, like all longships are. The port receiver array was still uncoiling, a glistening golden net of hexagons and triangles. The sun in the system was red, vast, and sullenly cool, and it gave the ship a bloody glow. I pulled myself along the rungs to the processing sequencer and found the cable box that had been hit. It was just a quick replacement job, nothing special. But the second I slid the panel back into place and locked it down, the white processing light clicked back on, and I heard it in my helmet speakers, drifting alone above my ship, millions of miles from anyone else in the world. A human voice. But not just any human voice. It was sweet and strong, with pride that I could taste in my mouth. The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight and goosebumps prickled down my arms. It was staticky, and tinny, despite everything the datafilters did to clean it up - but I held my breath for I don't know how long. I'll never forget what it sang: For five long years I thought you were my man But I found out I'm just a link in your chain You got me where you want me I ain't nothing but your fool You treated me evil Yeah you treated me cruel. I can't even remember how long I was outside the ship. I just stayed out there staring into the blazing white stars out beyond the four dead cold planets. The song ended and another played. I'd never heard anything like it. Then there was another voice that talked about people I'd never heard of and places I'd never heard of. Once I was back in the airlock, I regained my composure enough to realize what had happened - I had gotten turned around in the meteor field and the nets were dragging in signals from Earth, 165 years ago, or however long it was. I knew that was what had happened, I knew it in my head, but I couldn't stop shaking. I dialed up a frequency chart and found about a thousands more signals on the same vector. I spent hours switching between them. I heard about a battle in Vietnam and an election in California. I heard about a new toothpaste that would improve your smile and a new car that was more attractive than last years model. I heard someone sing in Spanish and someone shout in Russian. And the music. Everywhere, the music. I had to switch the nets back to deepscanning eventually, but for the rest of the trip, I couldn't sleep except in fits. I kept hearing those voices, thinking of all those people, dust now, or less than dust, talking out into the blackness forever. And I kept waking up hearing her sing. Five long years, I thought you were my man. I knew in my head that Kuwasha had ripped the spine out of what we knew about ourselves, about our past. But it never had gotten down to my gut before. It had never reached out to my heart. And it did that day. I was hooked, hooked for good. Once that tour was over, I sold out my contract and went looking for the History Merchants. That's my story. So what are you looking for? I've got some fine texts, our scribes have the first half of World War Two done. We have most of Vietnam and all of Watergate, ah, for a tale of power and corruption, there is none better. Or fiction, perhaps? We have Shakespeare as interpreted by the Royal Company of 2003 on British television, we have flatvids of a hundred dramatic serials, we have the audio adventures of the Shadow, the Lone Ranger, and Click and Clack Tappett. Maybe you are like me and you want some music that is different. The music today is so homogenous, yes, all that business about Unity, hm? Terrible, terrible. You want something that speaks to you, not to the world. How about Yin Chuan, Elvis Presley, or Devo? Do you want something slow and romantic? I have here a fine recording of the Slow Waltz Hour from the Starlight Ballroom, when it was 1935 and all was well in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Or something exciting and upbeat? Then I recommend this, a live concert broadcast of Michael Von Riskover from 2016... It can be yours for the right price, all of it. Your past, your heritage, stolen from you before your birth, now, only now within your grasp, brought back from heaven where it will dwell forever among the stars. -------- HISTORY MERCHANTS CHANGES/REQUIREMENTS FOR THE SETTING Earthbound and Lunabound archaeologists are viable History Merchants in almost any setting even close to the "vanilla" Trinity setting, but there are some changes that should be made if you're going to have the deepspace History Merchants described in the story. Here are some possibilities: 1) Non-psion driven jumpships. This is my favorite, because I've never understood exactly why every piece of bioware in existence can be functionally replicated with hardtech except jumpships. Maybe they're not as good - but as long as they exist, the History Merchants can fly them. They also don't need the ultra-long-range of the other jumpships. As long as they can get 60 to 200 light years away, they're in the band of transmissions. 2) A sufficient population of rogue clairsentients or secret teleporters to pilot the Merchants tiny frigates without Aeon knowing. As you might imagine, Aeon, the self-appointed protectors of the heritage of humanity do not take kindly to people outside the organization actually giving the heritage back to humanity. See "Rewrite" below. 3) Alternately, the clairsentients might be operating not rogue, but as part of some other Order who oppose Aeon in this area for whatever reasons. ISRA and the Ministry are two good possibilities. 4) The first History Merchants find a working Aberrant-era non-psion jumpship, but have to keep it very secret. (They may later discover that the jumpship was actually designed by an Aberrant, and even possibly cope with the Aberrant wanting it back.) Alternately, the ship might be discovered by some national government unfriendly to Aeon (the FSA and Nippon leap to mind). In those situations, the Merchants may owe the "pick" of their "catch" to the government that partly funds them. If there are government strings on a Merchant operation, the GM should reduce the Resource cost of operating the jumpship. An alternate way of developing the necessary resources is to sell out to a mediakorp - who may have very specific data-cargo they want the Merchants to find. (Easily-packagable music or TV shows, for example, rather than unsellably raw data for scribes to make into history.) ----- "Allegiance: History Merchant" provides a character with the equivalent of a fairly nice set of Allies and Contacts for the purpose of interpreting signals which the Merchants receive and for keeping your jumpships running (very important if the time period is such that Aeon opposes the History merchants). Deepspace History Merchant operations must have a combined Resources score of 9 that is not available for personal expenditures. (This is why History Merchants often work together in small combines of 3-5. The "lone history prospector" is more or less a creation of the media.) For example, if Adolf, Barry, Crouse and Dauphin want to start a History cartel, Adolf can provide 2 Resources, Barry 3, Crouse 1 and Dauphin 3, and they will be off the ground. (This is a simplified Resource rule designed to help groups get started and should not be questioned too deeply as it is not a very good one.) Deepspace Merchant Crews: They go out into the band of Earthly broadcasts starting at 1920 (200 light years distant) and ending at 2061 (59 light years distant), find valuable information and music, fill their computer banks with the data and return to sell and distribute it. Earthly Archaeologists: Into the Blight, into France and the Shatter, beneath the steppes of Russia, and the Underground of Luna, these intrepid souls try to pick up the pieces of what happened before 2061. (Those with Allegiance: History Merchants will almost always sell what they find, though they may prefer to sell it to academia rather than to the consumer or a mediacorp.) They tend to be the least financially successful of the History Merchants but perhaps the most methodical. Scribes: A general term for those that take the raw data of the Deepspacers broadcasts and the artifacts of the Archaeologist and interpret them into histories and historical fiction. Often times these will overlap, especially Scribes and Archaeologists. HISTORY MERCHANTS V. AEON REWRITERS There are a number of possibilities for this conflict: 1) Rewrite hasn't been discovered yet. In this situation, Aeon will do everything possible to discredit or destroy any History Merchant operations. This will necessitate a lot more secrecy for the deepspace history prospectors, because Aeon space power can easily wipe out a Merchant's tiny frigate and nobody will suspect that they didn't just suffer an accident or an Aberrant attack. However, it's hard to go after Earthbound archaeologists, who are generally fairly close to academia and its constant attention to detail. History merchants will be among the first to realize Project Rewrite exists, and will probably be instrumental in proving its effects to people. They will raise a stink about it every chance they get. What Project Rewrite means to them is an affront to their entire existence, their entire calling. (Not to mention their business.) 2) After Rewrite has been discovered. Aeon will grudgingly back down on their opposition of the Merchants - though practically everyone who supported Rewrite for any reason will bear a very, very, very heavy grudge. However, the demand for the raw stuff of the deepspacers will skyrocket. And finally, don't forget Kuwasha. After seeing his wreckage of the OpNet turn into one of humanity's most potent weapons (the ghosters), he now finds that his attempt to decimate humanity's history has been thwarted by a bunch of losers who got their antennas pointed the wrong way. Now entering the ranks of "most loser Aberrant", he will be steamed. ------------ Thanks to all the members of trinity@telelists.com, for their much-needed assistance and brainstorming. Hoody-hoo!