There is no telling how old we are. We could have been in space for hundreds of thousands of years.
We clearly are not the only 'ember ship'. This Ai we are communicating with clearly knows our vehicle class designation, and the vessels in its fleet are based on designs in our database. This poses two possible interpretations:
1) Aliens capable of spaceflight (or were indigenous to a planet a different ember ship attempted a human colony on, and subsequently stole the human's technology) encountered a different ember ship, and repurposed/reprogrammed it to serve their species instead of humanity, then subsequently made heavy use of human technology.
2) Other ember ships were successful, and a mass diaspora occurred, where human colonies produced cultures in isolation from each other. These disparate cultures now experience natural human animosity against outside groups that they see as threats against their local established interests. (EG, "clans") These humans, being the programmed masters of the ember ships, naturally assumed control of them and their functions, and use them for their own politically motivated purposes, instead of their original mission objectives to assure human survival after the loss of the home world.
These ships are mostly automated, and in poor repair. They are armed, and appear to serve a primarily military purpose, presumably for the protection of the resources in this system. The habitability of this system is "marginal"--- heavy volcanism might be a plus for energy generation (would explain the establishment of biosphere clusters near the active volcanic regions, when those areas would normally be undesirable for naturally occurring lifeforms.) but not a truly garden spot for human colonial efforts in an established interstellar holding by a "clan lord." Since a clan lord is clearly not in-system (as there is not another ember ship here, only a resident caretaker intelligence), we can assume that ember ships are a prized possession of clan-lords (possibly a symbol of system authority, eg, a throne or palace) due to the language used by this caretaker intelligence. (It assumes that we have a clan-lord on board.)
If the above postulation is correct, then the services of a second ember ship would be very hard to pass up. It would likely signal the clan lord who owns this system to make a "personal appearance" to attempt to claim us as his additional possession, as it would be a tremendous feather in his cap. The plan would be to provide valid logistical support in exchange for historical, biological, technological, and other databases-- along with sufficient fuel-- then high-tailing it before that clan lord could arrive.
We lack sufficient data to "bluff" our way out of the situation safely. Even if we used our single cultured human as a puppet in the negotiations, we lack sufficient data to engage a fully self-actualized human leader in prolonged deception. We might be able to bluff that our commander is indisposed, (since we DO have a single human life sign aboard!!) and wishes complete discretion on his affiliation and identity. (Court intrigue, that angle.) Assert that we have been given instructions to arbitrate these transactions to maintain his anonymity, and then list the services we are authorized to provide.
We lack sufficient fuel to leave system. We MUST refuel.
This means our only options are, again--- Engage in local trade with this fringe outpost, get as much as we can from them, and then hightail it as fast as possible--- OR-- Apologize for intrusion into controlled space, then high-tail it to the debris disc at the outer edges of this system and hope we can collect sufficient hydrogen fuel from the icy bodies out there before our presence in system is transmitted to the local clan lord, and he decides to bring a capture fleet to claim us/hunt us down.
Our chances of rapid refueling and appropriation of valuable data about local systems before making a mad-dash escape is greatest with option 1, regardless of if we choose to bluff or not.
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Topic: C.Seedship (Read 10670 times)