Intergalactic Summit

Actually, there is! There's a strip club/brothel in Caille dedicated to such a look and at least two or three more in the entire Federation!

You probably don't want to know why I know this.

It can indeed be seen as work related. Though I guarantee you that I did not provide nor request the services these locales provide!

Emphasis on request...

More to the point, I would happily contribute to this expedition. An incursion into Jovian space would open a whole world of possibilities for any entrepreneurs interested in joining in on this little voyage of the damned.

The scientific implications of bringing back a living Jove to study just so happens to align with the added benefit of her potential occupation as an exotic dancer. Have you ever seen a female Jovian Modifier shaking her pale rump on stage? Me neither. We owe the world that gift.

People talk a lot about overestimating or underestimating the Jovians, but the simple truth of the matter is that no assumptions should be made about them. They're inscrutable and enigmatic to the extreme, their technology a hundred years ago was functionally comparable to what we've developed today and from the little we've seen of them since that time it doesn't look like they've given up scientific advance. They're mercurial, manipulative and deceptive, and from the limited interaction with the other empires often display a disturbingly precise understanding of the things people want, even if they themselves don't know it. They're not above making themselves seem far more vulnerable than they are in order to encourage others to make serious errors in judgement - I often question whether the so-called "Jovian disease" even exists, or whether it's another one of their clever lies.

They've been silent since the wormholes opened. This could be indicative of something (conspiracy theory du jour - perhaps they caused the Seylinn Incident!) or it could be a complete coincidence.

The Jovians have been the givers of many gifts to the cluster, but there's always a catch to their apparent generosity. In giving us capsuleer technology they arguably sewed the seeds of a transhuman renaissance, but that renaissance has led to wars on a scale we could scarcely even have imagined a century ago, and put more power than a single human consciousness has ever wielded before in the hands of a vast coterie of minds that are deeply unstable at best - a textbook definition of "mixed blessing" if ever there was one.

If the Jove Empire still exists - and I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that it doesn't - there's a fair chance that they foresaw any action hostile forces might take against them a good while before the idea occured to that hostile force itself. In fact, if I wanted to be left alone and had an immense, cluster-spanning espionage network intended to blunt any action taken against me, the last thing I'd do is draw attention to either it or myself. People tend to make silly assumptions about things they can't see, like "they all died" or "you know, I bet we could take them."

Isn't there an old Amarrian saying - how does it go? "The greatest trick the Deceiver ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist."

I don't think Mr Nauplius does anything that makes sense from the look of his ramblin's.

This dancer thing is strange.

This person has no interest in the services of a dancer, but he wants to bring a Jove dancer girl, specifically, here to New Eden? I don't think draggin' her to a technologically inferior place would be much of a rescue. Anyway if she was that curious about us people wouldn't she just come here herself with her wormhole thingy?

I bet you just wanna kidnap her for reasons you don't wanna talk about. You're really no different to any of the men lurking dark alleys or smelly strip places, maybe just a lil bit crazier though and richer maybe.

No, I don't.

But apparently you do.

Either that of you're hoping a Jove dancer will buy your one-way ticket to what is essentially a third-world civilization ompared to theirs. I just don't get what your angle is mister.

What do you think she'll say? Like "oh wow, some random person from far away wants to take me on a sight-seeing trip! All aboard!"

In the entire Jove Systems, there will probably be at least one who would like such an experience. People go to more primitive areas all the time.

I am looking for one, because it is different, exotic, special and rare. It would also give me a way to understand what the Jove are really like. I do not believe all the Empires propaganda about how the Jove are dying. If they are, what better way to document the Jove than from one of their own kind telling you about themselves before they are all gone.

Besides, when she decides she wants to go back home, she would know how to make the necessary contacts and I could get her to where she needed to be for a pickup by her own people.