Patriots Chapter 1

*Date: 5 Years after the opening of the Ballyball League. Location: An unmarked office mid-way up a governmental tower in the Dlamisan Capitol City.*

“I’m still failing to see why this is a problem.”

The golden furred Dlamisan sitting behind the desk let out a sigh and rubbed his muzzle. The utter stupidity of the question, voiced by the 6th level minister for communications, was enough to give him a headache.

“Again...for the last time, our predictive models are not matching up with reality.” The 7th level minister for Societal Management stated as they touched some buttons on their workstation. The faces of all the attendees shrank to various corners as a series of graphs appeared in mid-air above the desk.

“You’ve seen the charts. While we expected change from the alliance with the Humans the rate of change is exceeding our societal models. By as much as a full standard deviation in some respects.”

The section of the graph flashed to draw the attention of the attendees. The obvious parting of the predicted trend lines and the actual tracked data quite apparent.

“Remember the Societal Modeling AI system is one of the key tools that is used to help the council make policy decisions and resource allocations on both our homeworld and the colonies. If we can’t keep the predictions in line with real observable outcomes then the council will not be able to rely on it for decision-making. And that puts all of society at risk!”

The representative from the Foreign Office was the next to speak. “I don’t disagree, but unless you want to cut all ties with the Humans the changes will not stop. And need I remind you that the council has decided that an alliance with the Humans is in the best interests of Dlamias? They’ve made it abundantly clear that the alliance is not to be put at risk.”

“And that’s part of the problem!” Now the representative from the War Department spoke up, a big black furred Dlamisa with scars that crossed his face. A memento of campaigns long past.  “Right now as we speak we’re seeing behavior from our citizens on Earth that concern me. Many of the military personnel that have been assigned there either as security or part of this...sports league...have begun refusing promotions. As near as I can tell, these personnel are trying to stay on Earth and continue their exposure to Humans. I’m starting to wonder if a crisis does break out between us and the Humans if the Navy will even obey an order to attack!”

“I share your concern.” The minister from Societal Management spoke again, tapping another control to bring up a personal file, this one for a single female Dlamisa. “This individual was one of our best geneticists working on finding beneficial mutations for our species. She abandoned her post and fled to Earth just after a secondary exposure to Humans. She literally committed a high level crime of abandonment of her job after just seeing archival media from the species. If it was just Outliers like that former scout, I’d not be worried, but this...there’s some sort of...of mental infection that spreads just from the smallest exposure to Humans!”

“Don’t remind me of her.” The representative from the war department heaved a sigh. “If only we’d delayed a damn sewer upgrade for one of the colonial cities by six months she probably wouldn’t have gone rogue. And now we wouldn’t have one of our armed scout ships being serviced by an alien race that’s already investing a not insignificant portion of their GDP to boost their spacefaring technology. I’m sure everything that their techs see is going straight into intelligence reports and being forwarded on to their designers. There may only be a few short decades left for us to even be able to fight them and have a chance of winning.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because it’s what I’d be doing if the roles were reversed!” The big black Dlamisan roared at the communications representative. The white furred female shrinking back in her seat from the volume even over the conference.

Before things could get out of hand the golden furred Dlamisan raised his hand. “Pardon me, but I think I should interject here. The conversation is becoming quite heated and I’d like to remind everyone that we’re on the same side here.”

His eyes drifted to looking at each of the representatives on the call and finally each of them nodded and the tension began to ease.

“Good...and if you don’t mind me reiterating the situation it’s clear that the alliance will be going forward, but it’s also clear that we need to control the rate of change to our society to bring our predictive models back to something reasonable. Does that sound about right?”

“And what, does the Intelligence arm have to suggest?” The communications minister asked after regaining her composure.

“Simple.” The golden-furred Dlamisan touched a control on his desk and the image shifted once more to another personnel file. This one of a male academic. “This individual has taken the human name ‘Bailey’ and has been one of the driving forces for increasing our exposure to Humans. He runs the Ballyball league and has negotiated several commercial contracts between earth companies and ours and several cultural exchanges. If we could...convince him to reduce his activities it would greatly slow the changes we’re seeing in our society.”

“You’re thinking about sending a team aren’t you?” The Societal Minister looked visibly...queasy at the thought.

“Yes, a simple ops team. And in the meantime, Communications you should lean heavily on your bosses to flag any human media files as ‘malicious’ on the general use network. That’ll keep most media confined to the academic archives, we’ll have to track anyone who has access but it’ll be easier than trying to police everyone in society. Are we agreed?”

Slowly the others nodded. “Then leave it to me, this Alliance will be a success but it will be done on Dlamias’ terms.” Slowly the faces blinked off and after the last one disconnected and the intelligence offer wagged his tail. Ther was just the perfect asset to send, because there were outliers and then there were Outliers.

A touch of a button and the holoprojector flickered back to life with the faces of two Dlamisans. “Were you listening?”

The male nodded. “Of course, we wouldn’t be a good ops team if we didn’t.” The male was average sized for a Dlamisan, in fact he was average in every way possible. Some quirk of genetics making him utterly average and non-descript in every way. Someone who could be any one of a million different Dlamisans, the utter ubiquity of his features bestowing anonymity.

“Earth should be interesting.” The male mused as the female behind him snorted. “As long as there’s plenty to eat I don’t care where we go.”

The Intelligence officer chuckled a bit at that. The female was one of those rare examples where sometimes, despite the best efforts of the geneticists, nature decides to throw a wrench into the plans. She was absolutely massive, a giant that stood nearly a full head taller than even military modded Dlamisans but for which two unexpected mutations had left her unfit for military duty. One a pigmentation mutation that turned her dark fur into a bunch of white and black spots making her too visible, and unfortunately the metabolic efficiency mods didn’t take leaving her with a calorie per weight requirement of a standard civilian that made her dietary needs unsuitable for long deployments where supply chains could be a problem. Sent to a world where active war wasn't expected however she made fine muscle to serve as the security for an operation.

The male just rolled his eyes and sighed. “Can you give us the details?”

With a touch of a button the dossier for ‘Bailey’ was sent to the pair. “This individual is the one that we were discussing in the meeting. His activities are adding to the stress forcing the societal models out of alignment with actuals. He is to be discouraged from pursuing further activities and cultural exchanges with the humans.”

“Levels?”

“Start with general persuasion, if not of him then his contacts within the Embassy that have been facilitating his activities. Make it clear he needs to focus on his ‘research’ and nothing else. If that fails, active measures may be considered.”

There was a pause as the pair considered before they nodded.

“One caveat, the Council is clear on one thing. The Alliance with the Humans is not to be endangered. If you feel that the operation is going to jeopardize that, abort.” A second set of nods and the Intelligence officer wagged his tail again. “Good, I’ll handle the arranging of your outbound transport. Your cover stories will be sent in the morning.”

And with that the communications line was closed, Humans would be allies of Dlamias but it would be on the terms of Dlamias no one else’s.