On Saving The Kaalakiota Bison

DATELINE CALDARI PRIME. SCIENCE ET INTERNATIONALE RELATIONS.

Darlings.

It has been many years since the Shiigeru tragedy mortally wounded Caldari Prime. Beyond the unimaginable human costs of that terrible day, and the catastrophic economic damages incurred by all parties, we have been forced to witness, in horror, the ongoing poisoning of a once barren ice world’s artificial biosphere. Let us never forget that Caldari Prime stands as both a masterpiece of ancient engineering, and as a testament to human resolve. We must acknowledge those pitiful subcontractors, who toiled in the partially completed tunnels of a terraforming endeavor, when our Cluster’s precursor calamity transpired. Those pitiful subcontractors not only managed to eke out a subsistence on a half-transformed planet, but went on to found the Raata Empire.

It is one of the great stories of our collective human experience.

More recently, however, a twenty kilometer tube of complex alloys, weapons of mass destruction, and incomprehensible power generation facilities disintegrated in Caldari Prime’s atmosphere on one last, final approach to terrain. During that quasi controlled descent, vast quantities of toxic dust dispersed through the upper atmosphere.

As heavy dusts drifted down, they accumulated in the precipitation parabolas of high mountain peaks.

During Caldari Prime’s few weeks of summer slushy season, every year, torrents of toxic ice surge down canyons. Settling in river mud and lake beds, heavy metals and radioactive isotopes eradicated many alpine species outright. Seeping into the root systems of diverse flora, these metals, predominantly, either destroyed the bottom of the food chain, or transformed vegetation into a lethal salad for grazing animals, berry-eating birds - and the carnivores that preyed upon them.

I should mention this was not the case with my giant metal eating mushrooms.

But there were no giant metal eating mushrooms on the slopes of the Kaalakiota Range. Authorities declined my proposal to treat the Shiigeru catastrophe with widespread bioremediative methods, for fear of contaminating the planet’s entirely artificial biosphere. Even if authorities had possessed more foresight, however, it would have been too late for the already endangered Kaalakiota bison.

That noble beast, weighing in at a cool twelve hundred kilograms, has sadly gone extinct in the wild.

Yes, some zoologists managed to sustain a few specimens in captivity.

I, however, was fully cognizant of the futility of such efforts, and have been recombining combinatorial recombinants furiously for years. It pleases me to announce that my Kaalakiota Bison Breeding Facility, on Great Frozen Tekkojaarvu’s Kuousimaa Peninsula, has succeeded beyond all expectations in the preservation of this iconic animal.

A greatly improved beast, weighing in at twenty-one hundred kilograms, this creature is not only highly resistant to toxic shocks, but nearly impervious to cellular damage caused by fast moving subatomic particles.

Furthermore, the Kaalakiota Noh bison is damn near able to eat rocks, while still itself tasting absolutely delicious. Consequently, the poisoned artificial biosphere of a formerly barren ice world is now capable of providing the cluster with an ideal agricultural solution for barren and frozen worlds throughout our great Federation.

While other candidates search for cooties, I, Gosakumori Noh, abstract theologian, recent immigrant, and humble presidential aspirant, shall not endeavor merely to manage our vibrant civilization and entertain its populace. I shall provide it with the vision to rise above constraints placed upon it by a corrupt, self-serving elite - and to prosper!

Link to Noh presidential platform

Can these bison be employed in the dairy industry, or as mounts for riot police officers ?

Oh my goodness darling I hadn’t considered either one!

Regarding use as mounts for riot police officers: standing three or so meters high at the shoulder and nigh invulnerable to any harm likely to arise during the ordinary course of rioting, the Improved™ Kaalakiota bison would make an excellent police mount. Even in the wilderness, the creature was wholly unthreatened by predators, has a mild disposition. and would remain calm under the most extraordinarily taxing situations. Some form of platform (dare I say “throne?”) would have to be employed for the riot officer to sit upon, however, or they would be doing the splitsies.

Regarding use in the dairy industry: each individual bison is what might be called “genderless female,” and does have vestiges of reproductive physical plant. The reproductive process is of course entirely engineered at the present time. However, a few switches could be flipped to devote more internal chemical processes to milk production. The creature’s metabolic processes excel at contaminant isolation and removal. Placed in a pristine environment, such as an ice world that has not interacted with a burning titan, a dairy Kaalakiota bison would produce Divine Milk.

Your question expanded my thinking, and I realized that the creature would also be a fantastic top soil generator.

As your former salon receptionist, spy, and now plant in The Scope, it is my obligation to point out that you’ve gotten ahead of yourself and gone off script, old woman.

We went over this with Chief Of Staff Hani Yuan many times.

Your plan is to demonstrate how disparate subcultures can come together to make a better Federation.

The animals you have on Caldari Prime now are the indigenous Kaalakiota bison. You are preserving them in order to showcase your respect for cultural traditions. Kaalakiota bison were held in high regard by Caldari Prime’s ancient shamanistic faiths, but can also be used as a substitute spiritual focus by your yak cult constituents in Jin-Mei space.

The Kaalakiota Bison Breeding Facility highlighted is therefore your zoological conservation effort.

The super bison depend on biomass imported from the ocean world of Lirsautton VIII, which you were going to talk about next week. By facilitating this cooperation, you are “helping reforge ancient bonds” - in keeping with your premise that the Caldari and Jin-Mei pre-collapse civilizations enjoyed substantial cultural exchanges.

After that, you tie in the Mannar with a facility in Leremblompes, pointing out that as the Intaki take steps to realize their dream of sovereign independence, the Federation will increasingly rely on the Mannar.

We’ve got all the locations scouted. We’ve got all the local officials on holo. Now we’ve got to work the yak worshippers and Raatan longboaters into the biomass story instead of the biofuel story, and my editor (who is Gallente and refuses to wear pants) is insisting he can’t work under these conditions.

‘SCIENCE ET INTERNATIONALE RELATIONS’ sounds pretty… Gallente

DATELINE LIRSAUTTON VIII. TRAVITESSE ET JOIEUXDUVIE.

[A camera drone glides above rolling seas. Titanic swells, driven by winds uninterrupted by land, rise and fall in all directions. Water beneath the speeding drone drifts from black blue into lighter shades. A trembling guitar vibrato with analog synth accompaniment overlays the sound of rushing water and drone noises.

The slope of a seamount, artificially graded for the right angle, rises from incalculable depths toward the bright light of day. One swell’s leading edge encounters the slope, the bottom slows while water piles up on top.

A wall of water fifty meters tall lifts behind the drone.

The device makes agitated beeping noises, trembles in the air, and increases its speed. Friction slows the swell’s bottom further, tipping the top into a foamy curl. Trembling guitar vibrato riffs attack.

Foam and water fall in front of the drone’s path.

The timid device centers itself in a curling tube of rising and falling shades of blue laced with white foam. The tube steadily shrinks. Meeping, the drone continues to center itself as best it can until the wave finally collapses.

Blue watery sky. Graded basaltic rock. Sky. Rock. Sky. Sandfalls. Wipeout.

Moments later, the drone shoots above the surface of the water, shakes itself off, and chases after the wave’s leading edge as it surges across a shallow expanse of pulverized black sand.

Ahead of the camera drone, a crew of naked Civire painted from head to toe (including nails) in waterproof SPF 128 zinc oxide gel, furiously stroke their oars. A drummer at the rear of a longboat made using exclusively traditional techniques bangs his drum and yells “stroke!’ Stroke stroke stroke!

Muscles and wood strain.

The longboat closes on a speed comparable to that of the onrushing wave.
Water surges beneath the vessel, lifting its stern and forcing it forward at increasing velocity. Zipping around the stroke action, the camera drone adjusts its telephoto settings to capture the naked Civire painted from head to toe (including nails) in zinc gel.

A bronzed Jin-Mei twink with raspberry neon tattoos and a dayglo mango beach thong cuts dizzy arcs into the wave with a self-propelled levitating uniboard. He balances a tray on one outstretched hand. The camera drone zooms in on plastic bottles of Quafe™ Deep Aqua™ sparkling in sunlight.
Zipping up to and away from the longship with that casual level of supernatural skill all Jin-Mei mothers, particularly Jing Ko Jin-Mei mothers, expect of their children, the waiter hands comparatively brutish Civire crew members bottles from his tray, rebalancing bottles as necessary.

The Civire crush the bottles in their brutish hands, spraying their faces with Quafe™ Deep Aqua™. A cheerful young woman’s voice over explains how Quafe™ Deep Aqua™ artificially stimulates the body’s natural contaminant purging processes to accentuate feelings of Refreshment™ and Perkiness™.

Camera drone, waiter, and longship race beneath billowing wind baffles and into the embrace of a sprawling resort community built on stilts above pulverized black sand. ]

[Cut to the Crone sipping a strawberry Mei Tai from a bowl-shaped cup larger than her head. She is wrapped from head to toe (not including polished nails) in bandages of gold gauze.

Nearby, a portly Jin-Mei gentleman of indistinct age reclines on a lounge half submerged in warm seawater. A bit further away, a dozen Jin-Mei twinks with raspberry neon tattoos and dayglo mango beach thongs balance, with supernatural skill, on the back of a gigantic bison paddling blissfully around the artificial lagoon.]

“It’s true I prematurely announced the super buffalo,” admits the Crone, “but I get so excited by fantastic beasts - particularly giant fantastic beasts. I also get frostbite on that iceberg planet. Seriously, darling. Who wouldn’t rather do their product launch here?”

“Seriously,” agrees the portly gentleman. He nibbles on nibbly things.

“But now the vats of bubbling bio goo really are ready somewhere deep underwater over that way, right sweetie?”

Caldari Graduate Assistant indicates that it is so.

“There you have it! The wiggly plankton plants of this idyllic paradise, massaged precisely by the precise fingers of my Jin-Mei cultist constituents, when merged with the radiated proteins of ice cattle on Caldari Prime, advance not only traditional spiritual beliefs, but also the bleeding edge of science as well as the narrative of diverse peoples coming together to solve complex problems in a civilized and productive way…”

“You reflect the dreams and hopes of all humanity, Mme President.”

“Thank you, Cultist Preceptor. For the sake of hypotheticals, hypothetically, of course….”

“Of course.”

“Should the True Emperor of All Mankind actually emerge, barebacking on a genetically modified super yak riot response buffalo, however improbable that my seem, you must necessarily worry about the fate of your people under a reclamation crusade led by a bunch of superstitious meatheads who end every sentence, complete or otherwise, by shouting ‘for the emperor’ louder than the next meathead, yes?”

“Not at all.”

“Why is that?”

“As discussed elsewhere, we are the most advanced bureaucrats in the galaxy. Our domination of an administratum, be it federal or imperial, is….”

He trails off.

“Is what, darling?” asks the Crone.

“Inevitable.”

[The longship drifts into view. A dozen giggling Jin-Mei twinks with raspberry neon tattoos and dayglo mango beach thongs strike crane poses while balancing on hulking Civire oarsmen.]

“I confess it continues to irritate me that I was not born in this star system,” says the Crone.

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