Interlude
Things that are true about this vasty, teeming, empty universe:
It is easier for life to develop from carbon than silicon.
Carbon forms before silicon in the stellar core, binds with oxygen into a gas rather than a solid, makes stronger atomic connections than spindly silicon’s jagged chemical bonds.
This physical reality, as fundamental as the fusion of hydrogen in a star, leads to certain chemical inevitabilities, as thus: carbon-based life uses water, stable as it is, as a solvent.
Water-based evolution trends towards fins and flagella; air-born offshoots trend towards wings for flying, legs for walking.
Being born with wheels for feet is not a sensible, sustainable evolutionary destination.
From the deep-sea amoebas of boiling Ux to the mountain clans of Ikkulaxi, physics will tend towards pumps or muscular contractions as a mechanism for driving fluid through organs, gas-exchangers for respiration and a careful balance between cognitive power versus energy consumption.
In other words: most sentient creatures of the galaxy are capable of recognising other sentient creatures, no matter where they come from, however different they may appear at first glance. If they do not, it is a choice.
Most particles bouncing around the interstellar void are incredibly hot, in the sense that “heat” is a measure of speed.
Zipping around, the energy of each wandering photon is remarkably toasty; but the distances they cover being so vast, you’re never really bumping into enough of them to experience anything other than the empty black, into which your heat drains like the last light of the thunderbolt.
Matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
This remains a reality despite the proliferation of arcspace travel.
The boundaries between inspace and arcspace require a certain velocity to be safely breached – usually anywhere between 0.
2 and 0.4 of the speed of light. This is more important on exit than entry – ships travelling too slowly as they crawl through the event horizon back into what is rather judgementally described as “normal” reality can be ripped apart at transition, and thus you want to get through that most delicate of phases as quickly and with as much momentum as possible.
A number of societies, most notably the pan-planetary movement known as the Lux, refuse to travel by arcship at all, preferring slowships and the cryochamber to the dangers of the dark.
Even then, the risks are not insignificant, for at a mere 0.
3 of the speed of light, the pressure of the interstellar void against a slowship’s hull over centuries of sluggish flight is enough to grind the vessel down like grated butter.
It must therefore be concluded that, given that the dangers of both forms of travel are roughly equal, people choose the slow because it gives them the illusion of agency, the apparition of control.
This is irrational, albeit a common psychological feature of nearly every spacefaring species in the galaxy.
There is not a society existing that does not have some population groups who believe in conspiracies.
Most of these are designed to explain away personal suffering or indignity, and the ones who are caught in these narratives usually want to protect others, defend their family, unmask a threat or keep others from a perceived danger.
They are the heroes of their stories – and who living does not want to be a hero?
The real conspiracies – the actual plots and plans that will shape whole worlds – are often far too vast and far too impersonal to really grasp, and when they are grasped, they are not called “conspiracies” at all, but rather “policies” or “business plans”.
They may not serve you, may in fact destroy your livelihood, your life – but as you, personally, the hero in this tale, may be powerless to prevent a surprise attack or a corporate takeover that destroys your home, these things are not conspiracy at all.
Just macroeconomic forces, and you happened to be there too.