Sylkskraa took a deep breath letting the air flow through the air holes on her neck as she closed her eyes ‘This will be the hardest challenge as of yet’ She composed as she took another deep breath as she stretched her wings, making sure that she herself was prepared both physically and mentally for this task since she was born.

‘You can do this Sylkskraa, you’ve been training for this for your whole life, you are ready, you are bborn ready!’ She sang to assure herself mouthing the lyrics as she opened her eyes and with the flick of a wrist the plasma cutter on her right hand spun for a moment ‘Let’s do this’ She decided as she hit the start button with her tail as the display dissapeared after a flicker.

Everything goes dark around her as the virtual reality landscape suddenly disappeared into another as then came the rhythmic beat of music as she readied herself by wagging her tail and tapping her claws on the floor with the rhythm. Then comes the notes and she was ready with both plasma cutters in hand as she sliced through the notes in rhythm with the song that as playing.

Then the projectiles came into play and she danced around them keeping her movement to the rhythm of the song as she sang it in her head as she sliced one such projectile going at speeds faster than that of sound through her species amazing reflexes and tracking ability even though you were technically supposed to just dodge them all, it looked cooler this way.

She continued on not feeling tired as her real body was just laying down in her den as a projectile nearly grazed her and that would be the end. The notes and projectiles got faster as the song moved along and then came the climax as she made it through to await the final results awaiting the fruits of her labor.

An empty circle appeared in front of her and soon it started to fill in with white which was the points she managed to score as it keeps on filling until it stopped just shy of the end ‘Come on… give me that sweet tenth Rank’ She mouthed a song as she patiently waited before the ranking came out as a score of rank 9 with just one note being missing for the perfect 10 she was hoping for.

She let out a sharp chirp and a low rumbling hiss as she exhaled out her disappointment “Come on! This one was doing so well as well” She sang out loud as she abruptly exited the virtual reality landscape, sitting up from the pillows of her den, sighing as she waved away the notifications from the augmented reality stuff “Failure is unacceptable, you must not fail again” She sang to herself as she let out a low hiss.

Tilting her head just a bit, she removed the head set that allowed for a full VR experience and dropped the headgear on the nightstand next to her sleeping den as she pulled out her augmented holo pad from underneath a pillow, let it try to scan her facial features before turning to type in the 10-digit password as that failed and opened up an online viewing platform as she scrolled to find something of note in the vast sea of the media.

Of course, being dozens if not hundreds of lightyears away from the homeworld gives you a particularly bad latency. She can still receive a signal even if it was a few decorum old thanks to recent advances in sensor drone and virtual signaling technology with speeds reaching that of modern FTL voidcraft.

She tilted her head as her crest feathers rose before clicking on the particular video that caught her eye “The void, the final frontier and the final ocean that we must explore in its infinite scope but have you ever wondered if we truly are alone in this here universe?” The narrator sang as it showed the void.

“Think about it as this one has, what makes our homeworld so special that intelligent life bloomed in it like particular flora? Is it the presence of life as a whole? It’ certainly not when you take into account the various colonies we as a species have already established across the frontier into the void itself” He explained with a curious song that raises a few questions.

“Science Fiction writers for centuries have tried to enlighten if intelligent alien life actually exists and what they actually look like. Most examples in fiction depicts them as truly eldritch beings with terrible songs and singing that can be barely understood with forms that are truly bonkers, some of which don’t even have tails or a snout as you and this one” He continued his song as she became truly invested.

The video showed a few examples, some she was familiar with having watched a couple of shows herself and playing plenty of video game and she does have to agree with his song though she didn’t interject or composed any as she just listened on ‘This is nice and actually interesting’ She thought.

“Most media depictions show potential aliens as incredibly more advanced than we are, they come in giant voidcraft the size of a moon carrying quantum weaponry that can blow whole cities to the skies and having truly impenetrable magnetic shielding always with a conventional weak spot for the protagonists to exploit and eventually save Kassia or one of her 6 colonies” She trilled a bit at that.

“This one’s point being, we as a species naturally depict aliens as something truly alien to our understandings but is that the case in point? What if say one of our exploratory science vessels came across an interstellar alien empire that is equivalent to our own?” The video showed a few examples.

“Many games and movies since 2 centuries ago have shown the angle of approach creating a galactic community, forging friendship and engaging in epic wars that rock the void apart after a disastrous first contact scenario where both parties misunderstand each other… I’m talking about you Void Wars” The narrator pointed to a specific badly rated movie and she couldn’t help but let out a quiet trilling.

“But what if the species we find is so technologically behind us that they can’t even leave their system yet. Now here this one out, the idea seems ludicrous but it can happen, it’s actually more plausible than the other options, you don’t hear any of that today is because well… who wants to read or watch a scenario where we are the invaders? I mean some would but many wouldn’t since we like to be good.

Suppose, there was a book where an exploration vessel travels into a distant star system filled with wonder and finds a primitive world filled with intelligent alien life. This scenario used to be popular before we were able to leave our system, it was sci-fi then but historical fiction now.

Imagine if we were the ones to stumble into that alien world, the few books I read about it and the handful of movies talked about there being a misunderstanding at first maybe leading to war, a lesson or perhaps we help uplift them to become our allies, who know and this one’s certainly no expert on the matter but one can only wonder” Sylkskraa was now very intrigue as she focused on watching the video.

‘Well hat is a good song and this one is on one of those voidcraft so could be’ She composed in her head as she quickly paused the video to do just that before unpausing and continue on with watching the video “In this here video, this one shall enlighten about what we as a species might do if we mayhaps stumble into a primitive civilization on a planet of some sort and how first contact may play out.

There are numerous facts to be made when you are making first contact with a primitive civilization, the first is the fear and panic that might spread with your arrival. In such cases it is best to not rush in blindly but take time, study the native peoples and mayhaps help in some way which generates trust without seeming like some sort of doomsday weapon attack or biological virus of some sort.

Truly, there are no actual guidelines for how first contact may be establish for any type of aliens, our best bet if we do meet them is to well study them and not make ourselves apparent until we at least understand their songs, if they do find us out we might need to rush things up a bit in case they might be frightened to do something idiotic like launching air to space missiles against us.

Point is, there are so many different ways that things can go both wrong and right and we won’t know for certain until a first contact scenario does occur. This however is just this one’s insane rambling, I’m no Archivists and this one has never served on a voidcraft before much less be a Helm Rider themselves so who knows, maybe exploration ships have some kind of guidelines for this stuff” He said with a trill.

Sylksskra followed with one of her own though a nervous one ‘Yeah, guidelines for first contact… we definitely have those’ She composed as she let out a low hiss clearing her throat as she watched a few concepts for potential primitive intelligent lifeforms different from those of her own species.

“This is a nice topic though and it does correlate to my job, maybe this one will share it with Rasnessk in the close future” She sang out loud as the video continued on talking about the various ways and protocols that might need to be played out on such a situation.

The coms however cut her time short “Mayhaps Junior Helm Rider Sylksskra Vertallic be at the helm in 5 please?” The voice in the coms sang to her as she let out a low hiss, turning off her holo device and stuffing it below a pillow in her den ‘Better get to it then’ She thought as she got up, stretched and exited her room heading towards the helm of the craft, passing by a few other crew members

As the automated doors opened as they scanned her in less than a second, her brother sang out to her immediately upon arrival “Ah there you are Sylksskra, we mayhaps a little problem here that you could mayhaps solve” Singed Rasnessk as she let out a silent hiss mouthing a sigh.

She looked at him squarely as her antenna glowed light blue in a bit of annoyance on instinct “This one knows you’re only doing it as part of this one’s training” She sang a song of annoyance “And this one here knows that you are the youngest of the Helm Rider and the only one with the rank of Junior or below” He sang a song of his own parrying hers as he patted her head and she did the same in greeting.

‘Suppose so, it does make sense and I hate it’ She composed bemoaning the loss of free time “Alright then, what task would you like this one to perform Senior Helm Rider Rasnessk?” She sang a question and his crown feathers brightened up in akin to a smile as she looked at him with a glare, antenna and ear dropping as she mouthed another silent hiss.

“That is an excellent question Junior Helm Rider Sylksskra, this one wants you to navigate our warp to the next system” He sang a response as she sat down, careful to let her tail flow through the tailhole in the seat “Well alright then” She parsed a song as she looked over the screen.

The AI system was asking various questions of various complexity, yes she wanted for the craft to eventually warp to the next system, yes she wanted the warp fields to start generating as soon as possible, yes she wanted the voidcraft to avoid collisions before warping and yes she wanted the voidcraft to appear in an open area that is free from flowing debris or celestial bodies.

The biggest question that the AI sang to ask was where to anchor the jump to as that is logically the most important question, it would determine where in the vicinity the craft would exit the warp distortion it caused which enables FTL travel in the first place.

“This one’s going to anchor the Calkion Drive to the 2nd largest gravitational anchor of the system, most likely the largest gas giant in the system” She sang aloud telegraphing her action to make sure she made no mistakes that would be too costly in terms of damages to the craft or to the crew’s lives.

“Well done, you seem to have your bases set up and read through the manual” Rasnessk sang as he rubbed his right ear “Yup, this one did apply for this position for a reason you know and well will never let a mistake happen again” She sang a response as she took the time to clean her antenna again.

She saw her brother seemingly looked around a bit before turning to her “Be truthful with this one here, did something happen? You mayhaps be a bit grumpier than usual” He sang a question with a worried tone as she took some time to digest the song and its meaning, her ears perking in response.

“This one is just fine brother, it’s nothing majorly serious or another, this one mayhaps failed in a task that this one mandatorily held and was good at” She explained in song as she dropped her ears in the glare of her brother and senior for a bit ‘He probably gets it’ She composed on the spot.

“You lost at a game again didn’t you Sylksskra?” He asked with a quick chirp “Yeah this one has failed at a game… again” She truthfully complied as she heard a low hiss behind herself “Well just try not to get these kinds of thing affect your work” He sang to her nuzzling her crest feathers in a sign of affection before checking up on the others as she just splayed out her ears and antenna for a moment “Sure” Chirped Sylksskra.

She got back to it as she plotted a course for the navigation of the warping ‘Let’s see here, mayhaps we have a problem’ She composed as she leaned back and let out a hiss in response “What’s the matter this time?” Her brother asked as he nudged her crest feathers with his snout as she looked at him intently.

“Well It’s certainly nothing about this one’s struggle or anything like that” She quickly replied as Rasnessk held a wing on the bridge of his snout “Well then enlighten this one about said problem sister” He sang to her as she chirped an affirmative before laying out the problem in song form.

“The third engine is overheating a bit again” Sang Sylksskra as she heard a loud clank a few meters away “OH COME ON, the technomancers just fixed that 3 days ago… hisss... T-This one will just go and get the damn Technomancers again, stupid overheating engines” 1st class Helm Rider Hallksinn let out a low hiss as he went to radio the people in charge of fixing the ship as Sylksskra and Rasnessk looked at each other for a second before letting out a constant trilling as they got back to the navigation to the following system.