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Post by Paul the Uplifted Squid on Apr 7, 2022 7:07:03 GMT
The Emperor would smile slightly at the Obdientary, briefly looking at the silent Rau in curiosity, his stoicism very much in line with what he knew of these alien beings from the few bits of data he had read on them.
"Ah, it is good to see you have familiarized yourselves, I entrusted my good right hand to send you exactly what you may need to understand further, quite a bit infact, along with a few encyclopedic works and historical chronicles. And yes melange is at the heart of this, as is House Harkonnen, for it seems that all the trust I've put into them has been… well, 'misplaced' is a rather harsh term, perhaps closer to 'misjudged'."
Shaddam looked to Empress and nodded, before she walked behind the throne and away towards a separate room.
"To provide further explanation, currently there is an uprising, not particularly large by our standards, perhaps only twenty to thirty thousand Firemen, though the damnable worm riders have been continually assaulting the Shield Wall that keeps the worms from entering the area, as well as attempting to blow it apart with breaching charges."
The Emperor's smile turned to a cold frown as his eyes grew distant. Thoughts turned towards the many parties pressuring him to regain control by any means necessary.
"Moreover, they have not simply been destroying our mining craft…they have been stealing the melange. And for all their riches, the Baron does not seem to be able to put up anything more than a meagre resistance as it stands. We have lost enough spice that the Guild even approved of your arrival into the Imperium, a remarkable thing even I did not expect. Though the Landsraad are quite pleased to have alien visitors, something I had not accounted for in my thoughts towards the situation."
Slight footsteps came from behind the Emperor and he turned, before letting out a contented sigh.
"Ah, I believe refreshments have come."
A small, orange and black suit clad servant had approached carrying a tray and bowl of what appeared to be a slightly dirty black unadorned black bottle and four glasses. The bowl, on closer inspection, held some sort of small grey and white furless wriggling animal, almost like the pseudo-rodentine equivalent of a mealworm, though each was the size of a thumb.
The servant however, may have drawn much more attention, their hair a natural green and black. But the most jarring aspect, their eyes. Their eyes possessed four separate pupils, the iris a startling deep purple. And their teeth, sharp and uniform, more like a needle toothed fish than any human. A small mark was upon the forehead, an upraised triangle with three small squares at each apex. The servant set the tray and bowl in front of the Emperor, both floating through an unseen repulsor mechanism, and began pouring an amber liquid from it into all four glasses before stepping away with their head bowed. Disturbingly, the face and build was rather neuter, possessing no real indicator towards their biological sex.
"A fine vintage, over three thousand years old I believe, put there by my distant ancestor Alcenon Corrino."
He took a sip and smiled.
"The current head of house Harkonnen is currently on his way to meet as well, as he is the one who will discuss payment further with you as well as I. Though, I do ask, do not make any sort of remakes towards his appearance, he's rather… sensitive, about such topics."
The Emperor downed liquid with a shudder and set the glass down as the servant approached to refill it, before picking up one of the small creatures and eating it, a slight audible crunch accompanying each time his jaws chewed it.
the things that you might like don't grow inside of me
Incompetence among their vassal lords? Sangheili jaws weren't entirely capable of the same expression as many other species and it was highly doubtful that his expression would be recognized as such even had his face been lifted and visible, but the closest approximation his species could manage for a small smile would cross over Rau's mandibles. While he held humanity in as high regard as possible after having spent years fighting alongside them during the previous Kromus conflict, that was only a general sentiment - and it did not apply when individual bias and judgement were concerned. He could hardly speak to it himself since many worlds towards the edge of Sangheili space had themselves abandoned the tradition of raising children communally and without knowledge of their parents lest it influence their own ability and aspirations, but that didn't mean they had set aside the notion that one's station was entirely the result of an individual's actions. Not their parents, not their kin, not any potential benefactor. One rose through society on their own merits alone, and for good reason - as this was what happened when they didn't.
Entitlement was a cancer. It bred sloth, incompetence, rot. There was no need to push oneself to improve or compete, and relying on such "birthrights" led to many who would've otherwise sunk to the bottom of the pile to occupy positions of power and influence.
It struck Rau as no small irony that those very inadequacies within this nation's politics was the very thing that would help drive his own peoples' ambitions and dominance literally galaxies away.
That facsimile of a smile would soon vanish as the emperor began to speak of the Freman, though.
The logistics of the problem was what troubled Rau. The emperor claimed that the uprising was small, but if that were true it would've already been dealt with. Twenty to thirty thousand individuals was not an insignificant number, and if what Rau had read on the planet so far prior to this meeting was true... he suspected that they were sorely underestimating their opposition. Putting the worm riders aside, they simply did not have the numbers to quell an uprising through force alone, even if they counted one Sangheili warrior to every hundred humans. Given the level of technology on the world that wasn't an infeasible estimation of their odds, but it still fell well short of what was needed - and glassing portions of the world simply wasn't an option since the empire hiring them wanted it accessible for easy mining.
The issue was frankly one of time. Either to attempt to find a diplomatic solution, or to request a larger carrier group to be dispatched - the latter of which was highly unlikely between the ongoing Kromus conflict in their home galaxy and the resources allocated to the discovery of an entirely new one following the battle at the Citadel.
As the servant - debatably human, although Asze couldn't be entirely sure, his head raised just enough to allow a glance at the individual - entered the room and began serving the emperor refreshments, Rau's gaze remained fixed upon the floor at his feet, occupied by the military concerns that the emperor's request presented.
"We would not think of it. How foreign dignitaries present themselves rarely concerns us - we would not expect such comments to be made within our own halls." Asze said, speaking up to reassure the emperor regarding his concerns over the official from House Harkonnen... only for Rau to finally speak up, a far deeper voice undercutting the younger Sangheili but not before Asze had finished speaking.
"This melange. Would we be afforded a sample?" Rau spoke, the words enough to visibly draw Asze's gaze from the floor and over to him - and although Rau had raised his own gaze from the floor somewhat he remained completely unfazed by the small amount of surprise and well hidden panic from his contemporary.
"Not for use. We've little interest in the substance ourselves but I've no desire to deploy my troops on a world without knowing whether or not its very air will be toxic to them. Knowing whether or not a world covered with this 'spice' will be hazardous or worse, addictive, to my men will affect our decisions in how they are deployed and where they are sent." Rau clarified.
"No more than we may need for toxicology screening."