Vampires Divided Loyalty

Many humans would make anything to be changed into vampires. Funny, that was never my case. However, even funnier than that perhaps is how similar that choice is to another that was once the basic state of all humans.

Vampire community anywhere in Gerunda, any court, has more voluntaries to the position of thrall than it can absorb. Everyone knows that becoming a thrall is basically, for all practical purposes, becoming a ****. For life. In exchange of prolonged youth and a few minor vampiric powers. Good health, vitality beyond human possibility. Still, it is slavery, total lack of rights of guarantees. The only two ways out that condition are **** and being granted the chance to enter vampire community as a full member. No one promises one or the other, all the candidates to became thralls have, is hope; and they cultivate it by themselves.

Interestingly enough, and perhaps ironically, this thing those humans are looking for the most: eternal youth. Humanity developed it even before human babies start being born and raised outside Planet Earth.

A long time ago, back in the early days of Baby Steps Age, even a little before that, depending own the Historian you consult. That was when human sciences achieved biological immortality for all humans. It was universal back them. The technology still exists, as far as we know, outside Lira System. It does not work in this system, because of those anomalies in the laws of physics, and the shadows. In the rest of the galaxy, the only thing preventing humans from living indefinitely is law.

Back in the end of Baby Steps Age they decided that was better to limit the time of life of all humans in 300 standard years.

Well, in Sun System. In “Solar System”, as they call it up there. A large portion of people is still biologically immortal. Probably. Because no one had to give up that condition when the law came. It only applies for those born after the law start its application. There was thousands of trillions of humans in Sun System who gave up their biological immortality as a way to show their support to the Expansion Effort. However, some say as much as 64% of humanity decided to continue being biologically immortal. Despite about everyone supporting the limitation in lifespan for those born after that moment in time.

Outside Lira System there are no vampires, and no shadows. No mechas or Mecha Lords either. No mages.

Like about every child born in Lira System I used to wonder how my life would be if I had been born in the hearth of civilization. In Sun System.

Or even anywhere else. A ship caring people and tools to plant colonies in distant stellar systems. Or even in the rock between systems. I suppose most places still have the technology to change humans into biologically immortal beings. Still perform the treatment in those who choose to give up the status of people and become legally the property of some human. Like happens with our thralls here, slavery is the price for eternal youth in the rest of the galaxy as well.

However, probably in most parts one can choose this path without the need to pass a selection process. There are few positions available for new thralls, and much less openings for the nocturnal citizenship.

I was chosen by an Elder Vampire to be a Vampire King. The experience of transformation is very different for us. We are the ones who transform humans into nocturnal children, those who will develop themselves as normal vampires. They cannot create new vampires, only thralls.

Before enter society as nocturnal children the new vampires expend decades locked in the cannels. Blind in their predatorial madness. I never experienced this. The change for us is, faster. Perhaps more drastic, certainly more …“alien”. Elder Vampires are not human, the youngest of them is a lot older than humanity itself. Make sense that their methods should not look anything like what we do.

Being a vampire is more than just not aging.

The nocturnal children move 200 kilometres per hour through the city. Running, climbing, jumping between walls, drawing almost perfect straight lines on the map, despite the imposing verticality of Austin. The capital of Amaterasu Nation, in colony Gerunda at the Lyra System, has a urban population around half-billion human residents. Those are the humans who are citizens of Amaterasu, not including legal and illegal foreigners. All sorts of genetically modified individuals derivate from humans or not. Seelie and Unseelie; who are also called Angels and Demons, respectively. The number does include most mages in the region. Do not include vampires, of course. Vampire thralls a few centuries old still count as humans, but eventually their DNA deteriorates beyond the scope of that concept.

In any case, it is a city of respectable size nowadays. Amaterasu is a prosper nation in this colony and things are going well here.

Good fortune is not equally shared, that goes without saying, but even for the lowest of all social groups objective conditions of life are the sweetest dream imaginable. When compared to the average standard during first couple of centuries after Heliopolis Age.

Buildings in three quarters of this city are massive anthills up to six thousand floors hight, each of those floors between five and ten meters high. Quality of those buildings varies immensely, and does occupation density, in some parts the floors got as many sub-divisions as the average size of Austin people allows, in others they are left unchanged. Trains and roads create a maze of lines between the buildings, denser as we get closer to Austin heart. The Imperial Palace is a city in the core of the city. Almost entirely covert by gardens with gigantic cherry trees that do not grow anywhere else.

Vampires never get tired, and for those who are still new to the nocturnal existence the sensation of expend the nights running from one fight to the next is intoxicating. I was told.

There are always some shadows, somewhere, but months may pass without any shadow infestation worth mentioning. When those happen, we see shadows large enough to destroy buildings coming down from the sky. They are not the concern of vampires. Mecha-lords and their immense humanoid robots exist to deal with those large threats. However, each of them is followed by a cloud of shadows that are small enough to be vampire business.

Rarely the infestation is so intense and so **** that Mechas are surrounded by shadows. The monsters fall from sky in what we call Shadow Tempest. Too numerous to be distinguished one from the others. Those nights we fight a **** fight to hold the shadows and save as many humans as we can.

The cannels are emptied, since all vampires are needed to hold the ground against he enemy. Even those who cannot think half as clearly as dogs do.

During those nights even vampire kings leave their secret castles underground do lead the battle. No human sees vampire kings in their battle through the city. Few vampires are granted that honour. Our presence is essential, because at some dozen kilometres of distance we can control and direct the actions of even our most furious newly created children.

They say a Nocturnal King knows things are really bad in a night of Tempest when he looks to the horizon and sees his benefactor. The Elder Vampire who transformed him into a vampire.

Elder Vampires almost never reveal their presence. When they do that, things are beyond serious.

Didn’t happened to me yet. All the visits I got from Yuri and his fellow Elder Vampires have been of social nature.

I cannot find Yuri, but I know he feels my thoughts when I want to talk with him. Like most of his kind he does not micromanages. I can contact other Kings, those who are creatures of Yuri like myself directly by telepathy. Others, I have magical and mundane means of contact. Is advisable for those in our position to keep open lines of communication. Avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Vampires are destroyed often enough, takes too long to replace every fallen warrior. The situations when we have to fight against each other, and destroy vampires, are numerous and frequent enough. No one needs more of that.

During the worse night I experienced so far all Mechas in Austin got some damage. Three of them ended out of combat, one of them beyond repair. I lost one thousand children, 72 knights, and 2 Dukes of my court. One of whom was older than myself: a “gift” from Yuri’s “mother-in-law”, as they call her. Morrigan is the name the alien has chosen to be recognized by, by humanity.

I don’t know how old any of them is, not really. Cannot even risk to place their existences in a time scale. Doubt any Nocturnal King could do that.

Another thing I don’t know is what is the actual relationship between them. Is sort of implied that when they talk about those things they are using metaphors. Images, poetry. There is a wall separating that from the practical conversations. We are not allowed beyond that wall. Their actual existence, their culture and society, are not part of what they accepted to share with us.

I know the number of Elder Vampires awake is a small fraction of their real population. There are enough of them to drink dry all humans living in Lira System in one night. Those who are awaken keep the rest of them safe, but sleeping.

They have a goal, still distant. They want to brake the chains that keep them in this stellar system and join humanity in its expansion through the galaxy. And through the Universe.

That is not something to speak about in casual conversations, but would be strange to call it a “secret” since I am sure that every intelligent human in Lira realizes that must be their goal in the end. I wonder if by accepting the change and enjoying my role as a vampire I have betrayed humanity. Sometimes, I also wonder if my worries about how vampire plans affect humanity are a treason to Yuri and a poor payment for the huge gift he gave me.

In Lira humans are in balance with vampires. Each specie needs the other, because without vampires humans have no chance against the shadows. Vampires need to protect humans, because we feed on them.

Well, we feed on intelligent animals, not humans necessarily. Since the definition of “human” is as restrictive as it is in the eyes of Human Consensus, written in the hearts of every Seelie and Unseelie in the Galaxy, humanity could easily provide the Elder Vampires with a potentially endless supply of non-human preys. Astronomic numbers of uplifted farm animals and former human lineages who lost the human status. However, I am not sure about the reaction of Elder Vampires to that proposition.

Taking by those I met, specially by Yuri, they don’t seem to look favourably to the Consensus of Alexandria. The notion that they seem to object the most is the restriction of life expectancy. As a specie that is very clearly biologically immortal, and very hard to kill, make sense that they would not understand easily the decision my ancestors made of give up the biological immortality and limit the time their descendants would have to live in mere 300 years.

They are aliens, and their alien minds cannot figure out our ways. One could say. However, being honest, as far as I can remember I never understood the Consensus of Alexandria myself. For biologically immortal humans to decide that no human could be biologically immortal, seems just wrong. A nasty, evil, whim impossible to justify or excuse. So much so that they didn't even abandoned their own condition of immortal humans.

However, they may not accept a strong prohibition against consume human blood either. Or never hunt humans.

I suppose humanity could **** the Elder Vampires to accept that limitation, in exchange for a endless supply of non-human slaves. If humanity could **** them to accept any terms. However, that may never happen. Specially outside Lira System.

Because the light of Lira inside the atmosphere of a planet or moon is the one thing that can destroy an Elder Vampire. Other than that, other Elder Vampire. Other than that, I don’t know anything that could even bruise them. They gave humans the magical knowledge humanity has, and I believe they didn’t shared anything that could put human mages in the path to discover any weapon able to give pause to their plans.

If Elder Vampires free themselves from the limits of Lira System, I cannot see humanity having any chance to impose terms in a negotiation with them.

Unless humanity has found something more like the magic powers of human mages and some vampires. A thousand standard years have passed since the Fallen Days, when human fleet arrived in the system. If humanity continues expanding as planned the human population in the galaxy must be far beyond what existed when my human ancestors lost contact with the Expansion Effort.

Perhaps somewhere in the billions of star systems now inhabited by humans some colony found powers as ancient and irresistible as the Elder Vampires. Perhaps the secrets of how shadows bend the normal rules of matter and energy are no longer secrets. And the Elder Vampires will cause less surprise than they anticipate.

I don’t think that is likely. This system seems to be unique in this galaxy. Without faster than light travel is going to take a lot more time for the Expansion Age to escalate into inter-galactic voyages. Only them humans can go far enough to have a chance to find another place like that. If any exists in the observable Universe.

If FTL is possible, and was achieved, that may have changed the game drastically. However, I don’t think that is likely either.

The most plausible scenario is that we would be sentencing humanity to a existence as prey for Elder Vampires. If we help them to achieve the goal of free themselves from this system. Since I am a vampire myself now, should I care?

Perhaps not. Probably not. Still, in some level, I do care. The idea makes me uncomfortable, more than what I care to admit.

On the other hand, only way to not help the Elder Vampires in their goal would be to kill all humans and other talking animals in Lira System right now. If they die, and nothing is left to start a new generation in artificial uterus, all Elder Vampires will have to go back to their long sleep. Hibernating with no food to consume they will never find the way to free themselves.

However, I would not kill all humans and other talking animals in the limits of Lira System. Not even if I had the means to do that. Means I obviously lack.