Someone on this thread mentioned something about a Zarek Null erotic story... this immediately sparked all my fanboy vibes. So...
"I was back at LHS 3447 - the system where all this started in the first place. How could anyone who was born on earth, the hub of civilized space, end up in this God forsaken star system? Well, if you have a gambling addiction, casinos in civilized space are no less dangerous than pirate dents at the edge of the universe. I lost it all and was in debt with people you wish you never met. The only place where you could go from there is being a cargo jockey for the Federation of Pilots.
I stranded on LHS 3447 and answered the call of duty - little did I know back then, what it meant to be a pilot for the Federation. Due some strange security protocol, you can almost never leave legally your ship! You're living and working pretty much 24/7 in your damn cockpit. Not even station visits are legally allowed, you get literally feed by service robots who dock at your ship whenever you're landing on a station. No wonder this profession turned from swashbuckling adventures in space to trucking in the course of time! Thankfully, due my skills I acquired back in the days with the gambling machines, I was able to hack the security controls once and leave the ship in a trading station. I met with a fellow pilot in the cantina who was able to pull off the same stunt - he gave me a VTC stick and said to me with a mischievous smirk, that I should plug it into the ship computer when I leave the station...
While hauling robots to Morgor, I played with the VTC stick in my hands. For a supposed dangerous anarchy, this system was as dangerous as any other. Bored, I pluged the stick into the port; turned out there was a small program inside it which was executed immediately and seemed to patch the operating system of the ship. Nothing happened afterwards, and I quickly forgot about it.
Days later, I saw in the more busy systems something strange on the screen - some ships had the prefix "CMDR" attached to them. After lots of trial and error I figured something out: If I hailed the ships which were designated as "CMDR", those ships sometimes hailed back - other ships, which didn't have this signature, stayed silent. Then it dawned on me: The "CMDR" ships were flown by human pilots, the others are commandered by robots! The VTC stick the pilot gave me, patched that filter out of the ship OS. So, that's why space felt so loney all the time, even in populated systems like Achenar and Sol: Almost everyone in space is a computer - the Federation wants to replace us all with machines!
The shock faded quickly however, being locked into your cockpit as long as your contract goes is like being turned into a bot anyway. So, I was back at LHS 3447, loaded tons of cargo and was ready for another trucking-run to a star system I've never visited before: Eravate.
Right after exiting hyperspace, I set course to Cleve Hub when suddenly a deep, trembling voice was blarring out of the loudspeakers: "I AM ZAREK NULL, THE OVERLORD OF ERAVATE. SUBMIT TO MY WILL!" I shuddered and couldn't believe my ears! Never before someone hailed my ship by voice in this robot-infested universe, this was a human. Another human being! I was ecstatic!
"In this star system, I do not allow star ships to use forward thrust. Only backwards flying is legal!" shouted the deep voice again. "Only backwards flying is legal?" I uttered to myself... then I understood what he meant.
Although our cabins provide automatic.. relief functions, they cannot replace the feeling of the touch of another human being. I was a staunch heterosexual all my life - but being cramped into this cockpit all the time and interacting only with robots.. I was starved of human contact! I knew what Zarek wanted.. and I wanted it too.
Ejecting the cockpit in the case of emergency is one of the very few cases when you can legally leave your ship without risking being fired from the Federation. I didn't answer Zarek. I wanted him to waste my ship, so that I could eject, picked up by him and.. well...
His mighty ship thrusted into my huge freighter with all force, his lasers and rockets were penetrating the hulls. The cockpit was finally alive - blinking lights and signals everywhere. It was a firework! Zarek continued to thrust his thick Cobra into my freighter, and I grew more and more excited of the things to come.
His deep voice was blarring from the loudspeakers when suddenly the ship's computer rebooted. After a few seconds it came back, displaying strange hieroglyphs on the screen, and finally a readable message: "AI take-over protocol initiated. Preparing trade-run". All the control were taken away from me. After fiddling hopelessly around on the keyboard, I tried to insert the VTC stick and indeed, this rebooted the system to normal state again. And then I understood: Each and every ship has an AI inside them. Soon the Federation will replace every single pilot with a bot! Maybe they even get activated with the pilot still inside the ship.. who knows what happens to the poor pilot when this happens. The robotization of the universe was on its way! Somehow, the DEEP, awe-inspiring voice of Zarek Null, together with his fierce thrusting made my the ship's computer go crazy and revealed the Federation's plan to me by accident.
I had a choice: Having the time of my life with the Overlord of Eravate, or activating hyperspace immediately and warn all my remaining pilots of the Federation's plans. It was a heartbreaking choice, but I did the latter. I pressed on the hyperspace-button and was heading back to the station where I meet the pilot who gave me the VTC stick. Maybe together we can warn all the universe of the nefarious plans of the Federation.
Zarek didn't know this, but in the moment when he thrusted with all his might and zest into my ship, he changed the course of the universe. He saved humanity from the machines! Long live the OVERLORD OF ERAVATE!
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