"First we are trying to figure out what they want or need. I brought all that fencing; but I figured that was more like a make-nice offering, rather than an actual trade good. Perhaps explain that we have seen them fight an implacable enemy and we're wondering if there are any supplies they need for shoring up their defenses. Or medicine. Or even food."

Kyle nodded, but waited for the Elders to respond.

 the Elder replied.

Kyle bowed again.

The Elder that spoke confers with the others either in a language that Kyle doesn't recognize or understand, or else it's Latin spoken so fast and low that Kyle can't get it.

 he replies to Kyle.

"They're interested in food," Kyle said to the others.

"Ok, we can do that, I think. I'm sure the SGC wouldn't mind feeding people in exchange for some new weaponry. Did you already tell them what we're after? Let them know that our planet produces excess bounty that we'd be happy to trade to them. We'll need to know what they like to eat, of course. And, of course, it'd be nice if Carter could get a good look at sample of the weapon, too, so she can figure out if we'll even be able to make it work."

Kyle nodded.

Kyle's request causes further murmuring among the Elders, which goes on for a long time. Finally, the speaker replies to Kyle.

"Is it your contention that you can repair the keraks? Perhaps even make them? Otherwise, we cannot trade for them. Every cycle, we lose at least one. We barely have enough left to repulse the Degra who seem to increase in numbers every cycle."

"You also spoke of medicines. Can they cure the witherwind?"


((OOC: Although Kyle is still the only one that can understand the Minotaurs, I'm not going to keep hiding the dialogue, as it's frustrating and annoying to the other players. Languages were a clever (and realistic idea in the beginning of RPGs, but the novelty quickly wore off, and it became tedious, time-consuming, annoying and downright silly. We always made the assumption that one of the players who could speak the language automatically translated for those who couldn't.))

"Until our technician examines one, we can't be certain, of course, but there is at least a reasonable chance that we may be able to repair, and, perhaps, even make, them.

As for medicine; we have fairly advanced medicine, but I'm unsure what the disease you are referring to as the witherwind is. Once again, we'd have to have a doctor examine a patient to get a solid idea.

I was wondering; are the Degra intelligent? What motivates them to attack you?"

"The witherwind blows through the holes in the Arc," replies the Elder when Kyle translates. "It leaves some of us weak and frail, and we soon die."

"Individually, the Degra are not intelligent, but when they swarm, they acquire cunning and problem-solving. Only the keraks enable us to fend them off."

"7,223 Minotaurs live in Taurium Arcologium now; we lost three in the recent battle."

"Tauranchula, please let their scientist examine your kerak."

Tauranchula bows in acknowledgement, then draws his weapon from its holster, holds it by the 'barrel' end, then walks over to Carter and presents the weapon to her.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:25, Sun 01 Sept 2019.

Carter looks over the weapon, and quickly realizes that it isn't a mechanical device, though it seems to have a few mechanical parts. Other than the arcology city, you've not seen any indication that the minotaurs have any other electronics capability.

The weapon is a bit heavy as 'handguns' go, and any human would need to wield it with two hands to have any chance of accuracy.

The trigger is twofold--that is, two different things have to be pushed/squeezed for it to fire. That's her estimate, as she doesn't need to fire it.

After studying it for a few minutes, and not finding any screws or latches that might give her access to the interior, she realizes that it's a 'puzzle-box' access. She has to push one part to the rear, rotate it slightly, and then slide another part in order to break the weapon open like a normal handgun.

Coleman and Kyle both notice the astounded looks on the minotaurs' faces as she does that.

Carter now sees that there is a single chamber within the weapon that holds a long bluish-purple crystal. She now realizes that the complicated method for opening it was because several functions had to be disengaged first. One of those is a ring that circles the crystal and moves forward around the crystal as it converts the crystal into energy. Based on the size of the chamber and the crystal, she guesses that the weapon is about half-charged now.

In reply to StarMaster (msg # 52):

Jackie smiles as the sci fi geek in her has just seen a blaster or at least thinks she has.

“ Interesting, seems like a Blaster of some sort. Like a zat but possibly not electrical. ”

She hands the Kerak back smiling.

"Interesting. It seems like probably those crystals are the key to reloading, building, and, likely, repairing these things. Do you guys have any access to more of those crystals? Have you seen them before?"

Before Kyle can translate Coleman's questions, Tauranchula steps forward to take the weapon back and asks his own question of Kyle.

"Can your scientist show us how to open the kerak? We have never been able to do that! Once upon a time, when all the arcs were full, then we had that knowledge. It's been lost over the cycles."

"We have tales that the crystals powered the kerak but since we could not open it, we did not know. When the kerak runs out of power, it was no longer useful as a weapon."

"We have kept the old ones, and we have more crystals, but we have stopped gathering the crystals from the arcs because they were useless."

At that point one of the Elders approaches, having left his seat.

"The crystals were made in the Tower of the Dead. No one has been there in 100 cycles. The journey is too dangerous, and the psychors that now live there do not like intruders."

Kyle realizes that neither of the words 'kerak' or 'psychor' have any translation into English... or any other language that he knows. While 'psychor' is clearly an adaptation, he realizes that 'kerak' doesn't even sound Latin.

As Kyle translates the queries, Coleman smiles. Clearly they were on the same page. Obviously their biggest problem with sharing these weapons was not knowing how to maintain them; it was easy enough for Carter to figure that out; so now they would probably be willing to trade at least a limited number of these. And, clearly, these crystals contain a lot of energy; they may even be more useful as a power source than as a weapon.

In theory he could use Carter's better understanding as a bargaining chip, but he figured that showing that his people were potential friends, rather than adhering to strict merchantilism would probably net a better long term result.

"Carter, if you'd be so kind, please demonstrate how to open the kerak up, I'm sure our new friends would benefit from that greatly."

Considering what to do about this Tower of the Dead and whatever psychors are would probably the next order of business, but, for now, it seemed like these guys knew the score. They had several concerns, and the people of Earth could probably help in various ways; that had to be worth something.

In reply to Coleman Hendricks (msg # 56):

Jackie looks at it a little more to see how it opens. Finding it fairly easily, she speaks.

“ Well, here goes nothing. ”

She opens the kerak.

Carter has to show Tauranchula twice before he understands the complicated system of unlocking the kerak but he finally gets it. He spends the next few minutes repeating the procedure several times to make sure he remembers it. He then hands it to the Elder who repeats what Tauranchula did before he hands it back.

Tauranchula then strides over to another minotaur and shows him how to open the weapon. This goes on for a few minutes as all the minotaurs present are shown the process.


There was another aspect that Carter noticed. There was digital indicator on the side that was turned off that would, apparently, indicate how many 'charges' were left. Turning on the indicator was also probably a complex process. Then she recalled that the rotating section could be rotated an extra notch if you wanted the indicator to show the charges.

Kyle, despite being kept busy translating, was making observations of his own, watching the dynamics between the minotaurs as they interacted with one another.

Once it was clear that the first few minotaurs had an understanding of how to disassemble the weapon, and the knowledge was being passed down the ranks, Coleman figured it was time to resume the discussions with the council members; "So, now that you can revive some of the old karaks, you'll now have use for the crystals. Hopefully you'll even have enough of the karaks and crystals, that you could afford to trade a small  number with my people.

So, I guess the next impediment to sustainability is the Tower of the Dead and the psychors. I'm not sure if you have a plan regarding that, but may I ask, what are the psychors? Can you describe them and what makes them dangerous?"

"The psychors are creatures of shadow that prey on the mind," Tauranchula replies to Kyle's translation. "They are not affected by the kerak. They cause confusion, insanity and sometimes death. Only a few ever recover from a psychor mind attack."

It was Coleman's turn to be surprised. That sounded like something out of a horror movie. He looked to his squad to see if any of them seemed to have any idea about that revelation.

"If they're made of shadow, I'd guess that physical weapons would do little as well. What do you guys think? Can you think of any approach for dealing with such things?"

"Electro-magnetism?" hazarded Kyle, who didn't really have much of a clue.

"Magnets, how do they f#$%ing work, am I right?" Coleman grins.

"I guess we should have multiple plans for coping with these things. Some kind of electro-magnetic fields or something, maybe. Maybe just plain old bright light, since they are shadows and all. I dunno, maybe a strong fan to try to blow them away? We can try shooting them too, but something 'made of shadows' doesn't seem like something that would have a lead allergy.

Let's put together some ideas; Carter can you rig some things up that we can try?

And Kyle, why don't you ask them if there's anywhere we could encounter these things but have an easy means of retreat, in case none of our ideas work out?

What do you think, Bjorn? Ready to try to shoot something?"

"I wouldn't take it all that literally," Jason throws in his two cents.

"Sure, these Minotaurs are intelligent and reasonably smart, but that doesn't mean they understand everything that they see. I wonder... did they build these arcologies? And now they've lost the knowledge of how to do that?"

"Or did someone else build them for them... someone like the Ancients?"

"Anyway, these psychors might just be bats or something... monkeys maybe."