They were banned from almost every DeRegger place known. Their ships had a standing order to shoot on sight. Yet... they came. How they managed to get through the security? Well let's just say DeRegger security is usually spotty at best due to how they choose to "fund" that security. Or maintain the people, supplies, and equipment.
Why were they so hated? So feared? They were telepaths. All of them, the entire team. They had learned to not only block out thoughts when one did not need to read them, but transmit such thoughts, thanks to amplifiers, on a large scale. But to be able to do so, they had to be within near line-of-sight. They would sneak aboard stations, onto planets and colonies, and begin to educate the population. Reading, writing, thoughts of having actual rights, of people being able to live good lives where everyone, no matter their gender, were equals. Where the young were not property, but were family, and so many other things that slowly eroded the DeRegger's grip on their populations. The damage done, the population more educated, the thoughts of freedom, equality, kindness, and other CRC basic tenants of civility now firmly seeded, the group would disappear again to go to another such place, and begin anew. -- DaniAndShali
[AN: I've had the Melil lurking about in my pet universe since the middle of the 90's. These are true hermaphrodite aliens and not a slight on intersex peoples at all. Honestly, I learned about the intricacies of that birth anomaly at a much later date and I refuse to throw away good worldbuilding.]
Once upon a time, someone built a wall to keep out invaders. It was an enormous public project and cost the administration a lot of money. What the administration neglected was to pay the guards along the wall enough to motivate them to actually do their work. The alleged security was defeated with the bribe of a pair of sandals[1].
Those who do not learn from the lessons of history... make Greater Deregulations. They believe that a super-impressive set of defensive stations will be enough to discourage outsiders from running their borders, and then refused to pay those staffing them enough to live. Not live well, just merely enough to live. This is, after all, the kind of administration who charges station residents for the breaths they take.
It should not be shocking that the security staff can be bribed with a potted plant and a sandwich, but nevertheless, they remain shocked. Many who run the borders also leave food plants with care instructions out of little more than pity that those people are forced to exist like that.
It should be a small surprise, if any, that the border control stations soon became lush gardens flourishing under the lack of flakks those distant guards gave for the safety security of their polity. It sort of matched the lack of flakks the CEO's gave for the staff of those stations in the first place. They wouldn't know about it until it was far, far too late.
Enter the Melil. They're one of the species who appear to be Human, if one doesn't fuss with the interesting details. For a start, if you ask one of them, "Are you a boy or a girl?" The answer will be, "Yes.[2]" Amongst other things, they are naturally telepathic. They were using Deregger space as a shortcut.
Telepaths like the Melil tend to pick up on a lot more than the more ordinary Spacer. Things like... a station guards' idea to send some of their hand-made preserves back to their family planetside so that they didn't have to pay so much for Medical Grade Vitamin C.
They paid their way through in a different crop and associated information and, unanimously, decided that the planet needed some help. They traded a few plants with outlying stations and installations, and also passed along how to propagate them if they should send some seeds planetside. They should share, the Melil pressed. Sharing is caring. This, they did while passing along instructions. The plants did well under the cheapest of flourescent bulbs. You could even feed them your drain water and they'd flourish.
They introduced the Tukkatukka to a Deregger colony.
Tukkatukka had been gengineered to grow nutrition-dense food anywhere, filtering out toxins and creating a foodstuff that could go anywhere and do anything. It could grow in the poorest soil with the dirtiest water, and in fact, loved it. With it, came the meme, Sharing is caring.
Dereggers were not used to caring, but they did care about their families and friends. They sent seeds. They sent cuttings. They sent memos in code to not let the CEO's know. Because if the CEO's knew, they would ban it.
By the time they got around to that, it worked just as well as prohibition did. Everyone recognised a criminal law when it was finally passed. The Melil, just going about their business, didn't need to feed them the meme, The administration prefers you to starve, because it was becoming very plain with the lies spewing out in their news media.
The Tukkatukka went into hiding. Every building had a secret stash of buckets or tubs underneath dripping pipes and glaring lights. Every tunnel had a jury-rigged garden of them. The people prospered. They soon had too much Tukkatukka. Too much for friends and relatives. By then, the initial meme had done its work.
They fed the homeless, starving, and needy. Illegally, of course. They had come to recognise the horrendous and abominable rulings. They had started to realise that their dreams of prosperity were never going to come true because the already prosperous barred their way.
The powerful didn't care enough to notice that their power base was eroding. Without the stress of balancing rent and food, the people had enough breathing room to be able to afford medicinal care. By then, they realised that Deregger insurance was laughable at best and worse than co-ops at their worst. Though the alarmist news railed against the neighbourhood medical co-ops, nobody was paying attention to the news.
Well. They weren't paying attention to that news. One of the other things the Galactics traded was access to uncensored access to the free infonets, as well as a quick tutorial on learning how to discern accurate and useful information from the spurious kind. By the time the warnings were concocted regarding the pollution from the alien menace, the people had realised what was real, and what was the dream of people who wanted all of the money they could grab.
One year, three months, two weeks and four days after the Melil passed through, the Oligarchy of CEO's fell. There was a new meme on the infonets. One down, far too many to go. Some users were imploring the Melil to go through other Deregger spaces to work their magic anew.
[1] Actually the defeat of the Great Wall of China.
[2] Ruder questions about genital morphology are also answered with the same positive.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Engdao]
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