Challenge #02148-E319: Mutual Flailing With Shouting

"Good news Commander, there is a settlement with enough material to repair our ship, the inhabitant seems more curious than afraid, and they are more than willing to trade the needed materials for help with theirs infrastructure. Mainly a water purifying station and a basic energy production facilities."

"Do they understand GalStand ?"

"That's the tricky part... That's a Vorax settlement..." -- Anon Guest

Can you imagine a surprise bigger than that? The Vorax have castes, and the most widely-known is the warrior caste. This settlement was the more peaceful farming caste, who worked with the trading caste to get technology from the tinkering caste. Members of the medical caste were scattered through all castes but the warriors, who believed in the nobility of battle.

They were, of course, more than a little speciesist, but that sort of reaction was natural in a group who literally never saw any other kind of creature but their own. Fortunately, they didn't even think of Galactics as a threat and allowed negotiations via a convenient trader vessel. Naturally, both sides of the negotiations table thought the other side had a terrible way of organising things and believed that their way was the only true way to keep things on an even keel.

All societies believed that, of course. It's just that some were more forcibly insistent than others. Fortunately for both sides, they were willing to lay aside the insistence part of things so they could sort out the trading side of things. One good thing about caste societies was that the fractions understood that others' way of doing things made sense to them.

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