Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #89.

Otto never thought he'd be jealous of other races for anything. Yes, they all have hyperspace drives – the Hierarchy drives are more efficient than the Androsynth designs, but they've had more time to work on them. And generally the other races themselves are ugly, so he has no especial envy of them. Interiors of ships are designed for the races who use them; the Hierarchy pushes for some standardization so that crews can be multispecies if need be, but Otto isn't sure how he'd quite manage piloting a Spathi Eluder when he's not sure which part is the seat and which part is the control panel, even after seeing it.

No, what hurts, if he can call it that, is that the Androsynth Guardians are so... ugly, compared to the alien ships.

The Ur-Quan dreadnaughts are huge, green, and businesslike, with their business being conquering and dominating other species. The Eluders look like primary-school molecule models – a central ball with spokes at odd angles leading to other balls. Umgah Drones look like bumpy tubes covered in blisters, but somehow they're still not as ugly as the Guardians now appear. The Torches of the Thraddash fleet – Otto's seen only one so far, as the Thraddash are said to be "guarding the rear" – are boring but at least resemble like the traditional Earth idea of a boxy spaceship.

But the Ilwrath Avenger, that is what a ship is supposed to look like. (That's what the Androsynth spacers say when captains and aliens aren't around to hear.) Which is an odd thing, because the Ilwrath were uplifted by the Hierarchy; they didn't even have concepts of space as a region until then. Yet their ships are exquisite curves and graceful lines. And the ships can cloak, can go near-invisible, which has the Androsynth engineers in fits, because they don't know how the Ilwrath do it, and the Ilwrath refuse to answer scientific questions. Maybe the Hierarchy did this for them, but Otto doesn't know why the entire fleet isn't cloaked if that's the case.

It's a shame the Avengers (and what are they avenging? Otto wonders) belong to an otherwise sadistic and ugly race. They look right for sweeping through the cosmos. Compared to an Avenger, a Guardian looks... well... dumpy. Old and ill-favored.

Otto does not have an emotional attachment to his ship like some spacers do. To him it's just a ship, a conveyance, a means of achieving his bliss in the pulsing red glow of another dimension. So he doesn't feel embarrassed that "his" ship isn't as aesthetically pleasing as the others. But he still wishes that, perhaps, the Guardian design might be changed at some point, to make them a little more attractive, or at least a little less tubby.

The Androsynth capital ships, Second Chance and Phoenix, they look more like flying fortresses capable of striding between worlds. But those ships are perpetually in geosynchronous orbit around EV2, unlikely to see use even when the invasion of Earth takes place, whenever that might be. Androsynth numbers are too small to justify using them; they're escape ships without a purpose.

Otto sighs and turns away from the viewport. It isn't the style of the ship that's important, he knows; it's what it's capable of. The Avenger is slow and its weapons' range is poor; perhaps that's why they can cloak, though Otto thinks upgrading the design would be a smarter idea. He knows he should be happy he doesn't have to serve on an Avenger, as the Ilwrath are notorious for their love of savagery – their twin gods demand brutal, bloody sacrifices on a frequent schedule.

But still, he does feel a slight twinge of envy in his chest, toward the other pilots with their classier ships that don't look quite so much like a rubber bung.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com