Sir Ulath stares at Nathan for a moment. "We, uh, we don't have the capability to destroy any possible walls in minutes," he says. "You're the ones who dropped out of the sky in a building the size of a city, I have no idea how some people are going to react to that. I don't expect an immediate siege, but if diplomacy goes sour enough..." He shrugs.

"The next person we wake up will be the Captain," says David, firmly.

"You're the guy that's ultimately in charge, David. If you think it's necessary, then go for it," Felix replies. "For now, I just want to finish the tasks at hand. Get food and trade going so we can become self sufficient and wake up the first batch of colonists. Then we see where we go from there. Are we all fine with the plan as it stands? Hunting for the short term until we can trade medical treatments for the bulk of what we need?"

There's broad agreement among the group that the plan seems sensible. Dr. Vanderbilt expresses the opinion that waking the Captain immediately would be a poor use of resources, but David insists that the Captain will be vital.

Felix frowns, glancing between Vanderbilt and Ember. At this point he's unsure of who to believe, but it's out of his hands. David Ember is de facto leader until the Captain is awake. To say otherwise would be mutiny or treason, and the others aside from Vanderbilt and perhaps Nathan are all listening to him. David has been rubbing Felix the wrong way since he woke up and if what the Doctor said about the Captain is true, the situation could become even more annoying down the line.

Annoyance.

He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Felix finishes eating, wipes his hands off on the grass, and gets back to work. He'll head inside with the group if it looks like they're going to wake up the Captain to see what the fuss is about, but until then he'll be working on finishing the smoke house.

"I'm sure we'll need to use some explosives at some point. For landscaping or dealing with boulders or treestumps if nothing else. You'll learn all about them then."

"And these explosives can destroy any possible wall in minutes?" asks Sir Ulath. "From what range?"

"I seriously doubt we brought any siege equipment, though we probably brought a bunch of blast charges to clear away hills and mountains to make room for the colony. Stuff like that would have to be placed in person, but could be detonated at a fair distance," Felix replies in the native language. "Mostly meant to clear space. Maybe open up potential quarries for mining. It could be used to tear down walls and buildings if the team setting it up does it right, though. It requires very specialized skill sets and very careful planning to do correctly. Walls were meant to stand, of course. The explosion itself would tear through anything in seconds, but the planning and setup could take hours, days or even weeks depending on the structure in question."

Felix does his best to assuage any concerns the Knights might have. They're not going to wage war, after all.

"Felix is right, to a degree. He comes from an engeneering background, not a military one. If you want the job done right, you need to plan it out and take your time. You save money and explosives that way, and it's far more precise. The military way is to just use more explosives, preferably aimed at a weak point, such as a gate or a natural cliffside that the wall is built on. The last walled fortifications we built relied more on sheer mass of material then anything else. We'd build an outer retaining wall, then fill the entire inside with dirt, or hollow out a mountain. Actual living space was tunneled underground, the deeper the better. The closest thing we had to a castle is what we call a bunker, which is fully underground, with a very unobtrusive entrance that was kept secret. Even those couldn't stand up to a direct hit from the largest of weapons, if it's location was discovered, and if the entrance was found, then is was only a matter of a very short time before you had enemies inside with you. Your only hope was to remain undetected, or to have a friendly force drive off the invaders. Personally, I prefer to take my chances out in the open where I can stay moble. Hitting a moving target is always tougher."

Nate scratches his chin.

"As for range, well, today it's as far as we can throw them. In time, we could hit a target on the far side of the moon if you really wanted to."

Nate smiles somewhat sadly at Ulath and Bevier.

"I'm very glad we came in peace, my friends. I don't want to fight any more wars, especialy against such nice people as yourselves."

Sir Ulath smiles indulgently. "You'd need a very large catapult to hit the far side of the moon," he says.

Nate grins back.

"True that. Anyways, Sir Sparhawk said that the local political landscape could be described as "troubled". Would you be able to elaborate? I'd like to know what exactly we're getting into, and if a diplomatic solution is possible."

Sir Ulath snorts. "Sir Sparhawk has a better idea of it," he says. "We're in the Kingdom of Elenia. The current Queen, Cehlana, is... well, you know. Unable to rule. Theoretically, that means the Kingdom falls under control of her cousin, the Bastard Lycheas. Realistically, he's a spineless coward and a weakling. Also, no-one knows who his father is. Which means the real power behind the throne is the Primate, Raven. Sparhawk would be able to give you a better explanation of what he wants, but considering that he probably poisoned the Queen to get it..."

He shrugs. "I'm actually from Thalesia, myself. Different kingdom, but allied. The entire Eosian continent is roughly divided into two parts. There's the country of Zemoch, who pretty much want to wipe out everybody else in a massive genocidal war. And then there's everyone else, who are allied to try to prevent that. We've just about finished recovering from our last major war with them, so we're probably about due for another. Apparently there's the Tamul Empire on the far side of Zemoch; I'm pretty sure they're not at war with anybody, but when the Zemochs are finished with us they'll turn around and wipe them out too."

"Why, though?" Felix inquires as he goes about sorting the tools to get back to work. "Does it have anything to do with this... This god, that Sir Sparhawk mentioned? Is there some sort of religious documentation that says they have to war with other kingdoms? Is there some kind of prophet commanding they have to war with the rest of the continent?"

"Ha, should it be so simple!" says Sir Ulath. "No, the Elder God Azash is personally telling his followers to convert or kill every other living being in the world to his disgusting worship."

"Huh... I take it a deity is somewhat hard to kill, then?" Felix ponders for a moment. "How long has this been going on, exactly?"

Sir Ulath snorts. "More like impossible. And our last major battle was five hundred years ago. Theoretically, we won, but..."