There is no sound in the perfect vacuum of interstellar space, and yet the Nemaeans listen: if not to vibrational sound itself, then at least the RF emissions, the synchrotron wail of distant black holes, and their own ship-voices carried on lancing beams of domesticated tachyons. We have learned to listen as Nemaeans do. The universe has opened to us. What we hear (or think we hear) are mysteries beyond our comprehension. Common chatter between Nemaean starships is as cryptic as the talk among aliens. We can guess at what our Nemaean neighbors might say to one another, but we can never be certain of what they actually mean. Their sprawling, interstellar society diverges from ours, and so their concerns are (ultimately) not our own. Words and the meanings of words have all shifted away from their baseline norm, and so we may learn of one triad of ships (or another) making its way to one target (or another) but beyond that, we can only guess at what agendas drive their captains, their crews, or the desk-bound administrators who decide what ships go where. We may watch them fly from here to there (or there, and there) and we may guess at what resources draw them. Nemaeans, like us, are human and so their needs are well understood. They require volatiles for every aspect of life from biological necessity to fuel for their leviathan ships; they require metals, exotic materials of arcane and inscrutable pedigree. There are those among us who recognize them as human, but I often wonder what this word means, when it makes reference to the strangest of our interstellar neighbors. Human: I wonder if Nemaeans even recognize the word. —Anonymous: Fragments of a hand-written journal found in the ruins of RSS 700 * * * It’s been a while since I posted anything Nemaean related, and I figured that for my 700th post, I’d rectify that glaringly wrong situation. I was also inspired to create this post due to the exuberant generosity of Mike (NefariousDrO) who allowed me to steal…um, I mean borrow the Nemaean vessels he’d actually put quite a lot of work into. I find it nicely fitting that this dip into the Nemaean universe is also a collaboration. I plan to do a lot more with the Nemaean universe, and to finally get around to finishing Ilya’s, Aleo’s and Dorianna’s winding and super-convoluted story (they have a few more tales to go yet, and well…Dorianna’s getting a bit impatient with not having her subtle antics committed to digital paper.) There are a few artists on this site who have truly inspired and/or captured the essence of Nemaea, and I’m rather glad that Mike (NefariousDrO) actually came up with a whole line of starships that exactly fit the Nemaean ideal. If you haven’t seen his gallery, click HERE to check it out. He’s also created his own deliciously rich and complex interstellar society well worth exploring, and well…his ships and space stations rock. You’ll even find a triad of impressively massive Nemaean ships there, among other assorted treasures. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a fantastic weekend.