Rkynkyc was concerned. He had been concerned since waking that day and finding his morning condition simulator, the device which caused his body to think it was time to wake up had broken and he was late for work. He had been concerned that his would superior discipline him by removing his rights to eat anything other than nutrient spheres at work; he had spent enough of his life aboard ships to never want to ingest such a substance again. He had been concerned (but thankful) when he got to work and found that the office was too busy dealing with the commotion of the recent Deathworlders quarantine to even notice his late entry. He was then concerned that his important work on the analysis of the Dominions economic development had been put on hold, and that his new assignment was to research the cyber warfare capabilities of these Deathworlders.
Making his way carefully through the office with his four legs, attempting not to bump into his co-workers which were hurriedly running about the office so as to make sure no one noticed his lateness, he eventually made it to his desk. Slipping into his nest chair he placed his finger on his interface, causing it to light up. The interface acknowledged Rkynkyc as the user and expanded, revealing multiple smaller holographic screens, each of which was full of information. Glad that he had appeared to get out of trouble for being late, Rkynkyc got down to business and started sorting through the data. After a short while Rkynkyc was no longer concerned. Not like he had been before. Looking at the simulation based on the information given confused him, making him momentarily forget about the unfortunate events that he started his day of with.
“Gzkzryc, the data you gave me is wrong. There’s no way a species which has had an information network for such little time has made so much progress!”
Gzkzryc, one of Rkynkyc’s superiors, gave several tired clicks as if he had already heard it 100 times that day. “Rkynkyc I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell the military since we got it, but they insist it’s true! Just work with it and give them the result they want. Now don’t bother me again, half the department has been telling me the data on the Humans is wrong but there’s nothing I can do!”
Rkynkyc hissed beneath his breath, annoyed that his time was to be wasted on bad data, but calmed when he told himself he was at least getting paid for it. So he began looking through the data, marking parts where the Deathworlders made breakthroughs and slowly gathering information to make an accurate prediction of their future development. As he was doing so he couldn’t help but feel something growing inside his upper stomach. For data that he was sure was botched, it seemed far too fluid. Having spent the majority of his post-juvenile life dealing with data he had gotten good at telling apart real and fake data, sometimes progress would spike for no reason or technology would appear with no record of a creator with fake data. This was not fake data. Soon Rkynkyc had to stop his work and think on this for a moment.
“There was no way some overgrown Zerilea Climbers living on a deathworld could advance so much so quickly. It had been so few cycles since they had even made their information network, yet their processing power was already approaching some of the younger FTL capable species! If this rate of progress continues…”
Rkynkyc worked faster; motivated by the panic he was feeling. Soon he had the rough simulation of future progress complete, with only the need to activate it. He did so.
“SANCTIFIED FERELDI WASTE!”
Hearing his cry the office stopped their work and for a few seconds it was silent.
“Rkynkyc what in the shard desert of Ferlera is wrong with you!?”
“Gzkzryc… the Deathworlders… they are way too fast. The gradient is… It’s impossible! But it all fits! We’ve got to test more… if it’s all like this…”
“Rkynkyc slow down! You’re not making sense. And everyone else back to work!” Gzkzryc strode quickly down to Rkynkyc desk. Being one of the few bipedal species in the cluttered room made it easier for him to move around than most. Rkynkyc took some deep breaths, his earlier rapid clicking wore had worn him down as he had temporarily forgotten to intake air.
“Gzkzryc, the data, I don’t think its fake… and the simulation…”
“Whoa Rkynkyc, what do you mean it’s not fake? I saw it there’s no way…”
“Gzkzryc. I have been doing this most of my fully developed life. I have dealt with all sorts records and can tell when something doesn’t add up. This… it just fits perfectly. I can’t see anything other than the crazy speed that would indicate any inconsistencies.”
Gzkzryc relaxed his face muscles, indicating deep thought. “It’s true, you are one of the best we got. If you say its legitimate then either it’s one of the best forgeries I’ve ever seen or its real. But that aside what in the clouds overcame you earlier to yell such obscenities?”
“This.”
Rkynkyc touched a display of his interface, and a graph appeared with a shallow line and a steep line which shot of the display about halfway through the graph. Gzkzrkc relaxed his face muscles for a few seconds, then they quickly contorted and his fur stood on edge. Rkynkyc had never seen his superior like this before, his translator quickly said it indicated shock.
“That’s impossible! That’s less than [250 years] from now! We have probably been FTL capable since before they knew how to speak, yet they are projected to equal our informational technology in such a short time!?” Rkynkyc shifted uncomfortably before replying. “Gzkzryc, that’s not the worst of it.” At this his superior’s three eyes widened, a universally understood expression.
“What could possibly be worse than this? If it’s true there are serious security concerns, can we even keep them quarantined?”
“With all due respect Gzkzryc, please allow me to explain myself fully before commenting?” His superior gave a short sigh indicating agreement before Rkynkyc continued. “Whilst I was compiling the data some things occurred to me, there was another worrying species which also had an accelerated rate of progress in computing than normal: The Hunters, they’re proficiency means that they were even able to merge somewhat with the computers. Today it is said that Hunters do not even use speech anymore instead relying on implants to communicate with each other. Luckily we had enough of a head start on them to give us an advantage, so we have been able to maintain a lead on them despite that. But It wasn’t just computing the Hunters also had faster rates of progress in, stealth technology and ship weapon systems to name a couple. Obviously even they are hugely outclassed by these Deathworlders rate of progress in computing. Now what if similarly the humans also advance at such a level in other areas of science?”
As Rkynkyc finished he saw his superiors eyes grow even wider in realization, looking almost like they were about to fall out of their sockets. Rkynkyc continued.
“I haven’t got access to the data to test accurately, but based on what I could gather from their information network it seems probable that most of their military technology follows similar trends. If so they will likely equal us in maybe [400-500 years], but they wouldn’t need to get that far to break out of their solar system. I would say we have a maximum of [150 years] before the humans break quarantine. “
At this Gzkzryc was about ready to run to his interface and make a personal call to the military about this. He knew they wouldn’t believe him, but at this point he didn’t know what else to do. Just as he was about to go Rkynkyc grabbed his arm.
“What is it Rkynkyc? We need to inform command about this!”
“You know as well as I do there’s no way they would believe anything we said about this, besides there’s one more thing I didn’t mention yet. The Deathworlders have Hunter tech.”
At this Gzkzryc shook free of Rkynkyc’s grip and ran to his interface, startling many of his subordinates as he ran past in his panic induced state. Meanwhile the data analyst sat quietly thinking to himself. How far did the Hunter’s failed raid on the Deathworlders push their technology forward? How long would it be before they understood the Hunters weapons and applied it to their own to such a point they could break free of containment? [100 years]? [50 years]? [10 years]? Would he still live when it happened? Would they even be able to convince the Confederation to believe what they said in that time?
It was no longer a question of whether the Confederation would willingly open the enclosure and accept Humanity.
It was no longer a question of whether Humanity would break quarantine.
It was a question of how long until Humanity broke free.
Humanity was coming and Rkynkyc was concerned.