Travel permit

Bringing Libby to Seclusion station may be more difficult than I anticipating. She is willing to go, perhaps even eager to get out of Mehatoor. But transporting her in the Indagatrix gets a hard no from my political officer, the recently promoted mr. Firth. 

Not unless I can present proper papers from her Holder that she is to be transferred to Seclusion. In itself this is a very reasonable measure to prevent slaves from running away. But I do feel that mr. Firth should trust me a bit more. 

I am not sure if ms. Yubari's signature on a form would be legal - due to her condition, and probably also to her not being legally allowed to even own slaves. And of course, I cannot ask the heretic to sign a form, even considering that is ridiculous.

I seem to be stuck on this.

Rescued slaves

A crisis like the Drifter incursions can bring out the very best in people - but unfortunately also the worst.

This became clear over the weekend, as I saw a sudden influx of traumatized slaves into the Lamp's medbay. The heretic leader of the Sedevacantists had attempted to sacrifice these slaves to the Drifters, by dumping them in mobile depots in space. The idea was to have the Drifters experiment on them rather than on monks. While the saving of innocent monks is a good intention, the means are horrific.

A LUMEN fleet, commanded by Maria Daphiti, went to save these poor souls from a certain death, be it from a Drifter attack or by neglect and hunger alone in the depths of space. Sadly, not all could be saved, it was too late for some. Those that survived were brought back to Mehatoor. Mr. Ché Biko - a diplomat connected to a pacifist faction within the Federation, if I recall correctly - offered assistance by dispatching trauma experts.

That is very kind, but it is also very Gallente to forget about the healing of the soul. Abuse not only causes psychological trauma, it can also lead to a crisis of faith. I made sure to visit and comfort the escapees spiritually.

The commotion in the Medbay had a very detrimental impact on Libby, herself a former slave and victim of the heretic. Her fears that the heretic would come and take her back are again paralysing her. I will discuss with her my plans to have her transferred to St. Vasrayi's chapel Seclusion. Despite several attempts, I think it is clear that she cannot function in Mehatoor due to the presence of the heretic in the same system.

Simulacra

Again, there are worrisome developments on the Drifter crisis. Pilots (among them Michael Minate who reported it publicly) have found simulated baseliners. Vast amounts of data to create a copy of one particular person! Additionally, fragments of what appear to be images of an invasion plan have been found. 

Others have been asking why the Drifters experiment on us, exposing helpless monks to radiation and testing their limits. They are rightly expecting the Drifters to already have more than enough accurate information on our physiology. What they might not know accurately are our cultural habits, our psychology - different from empire to empire, for which they would have to redo their experiments in each of the four powers. 

Putting it all together, I think they plan to build a simulacrum - a copy of an existing person, to inhabit and behave in a manner that does not raise suspicion. They need the information on our behavior to make these simulacra blend in. 

This could be to create a spokesperson, or a negotiator to talk to us - if so it would be a first real attempt at conversation. The more probable explanation is that they want to infiltrate our ranks, replace people in crucial positions with their puppets, to help their invasion. 

I have discussed it with mr. Firth, who assures me that the MIO is having the situation under control and that I should not worry. I do worry nevertheless, and insisted that we devise a secret passphrase and commit it to memory, to be able to make sure that we haven't been replaced by Drifter simulacra.

PS. I need to warn Baron Redwolfe to be watchful for simulated pilots infiltrating his fleets. Oh, I also should not forget to ask him about the missing bookshelf LXXIII in his Order's library.

More celebrations

Today there was another party - a more private one this time, not Empire wide, just on board of the Indagatrix! 

Mr. Ivan Firth passed the promotion exam and thus met the final requirement for his promotion along the ranks of the MIO. I think he skipped a few rungs, thanks to our explorations and bringing back interesting artefacts. I do not know what these ranks or nomenclatures imply, but he is now Itinerant Frumentarius First class. He's got a new uniform too. 

It would be logical for him to now have more choice in his assignments and be able to do other things than look after a curious friar exploring about. So I think it is by his own volition that he stays on as political officer of the Indagatrix. 

He's arranged for an escape pod of his own, a new MIO type pod. It is, he says, safer and better equipped than the life support backup unit I had installed a while ago in the cargo bay. It will take up much less space, and has proven its worth in the recent Drifter crisis, where more than ever before search and rescue missions were successful. 

Victory in Tash-Murkon

A victory in Tash-Murkon! 

The Empress' home system had been the target of a Drifter incursion. The Navy and independent capsuleers such as our own pilots have worked hard to repell these "profane monstrosities" as the Empress calls them. They managed to destroy a Vigilant Dreamer, the hub of the invasion. Our scientists understand this structure to be some sort of spying and information gathering nexus, passing on the data to God knows where. With its destruction, the incursion came to an end.  

While the "Drifter Crisis" - as this was is called - is not over yet, it was a moment to celebrate. The Empress gave a speech, and commended all, saying that "the faithful have risen to that challenge like a righteous flame!"

She mentioned the valiant pilots that were there to deal the final blow to the Dreamer - among them Arataka Research Consortium fleet commander DutchGunner, whom I had the pleasure to fly with in the past. Although some view the ARC with suspicion due to their neutrality, I think their actions now prove their good intent. They have been fighting these Drifters for a long time in wormhole space, and share their experience in the extermination of that threat.

Although not mentioned by name in the Empress' speech, let us not forget the great efforts of our own Baron Redwolfe and his fleets, that have worked closely with the Amarr navy. Last I heard they have been doing search and rescue missions which by now saved hundreds of Amarr navymen, During these missions, they have encountered and destroyed many more enemy vessels in the process. Let our pilots and the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl take pride in having earned the gratitude of our beloved Empress and of all Amarr!

Meditations on immortality

Capsuleers. Contrary to baseliner belief, we are not eternal. But we are not quite mortal either. Our immortality is a potential to endure in time, but it is to be sharply distinguished from eternity as is found in mathematical truths or in God[1]. To put it plainly: we can be killed and erased from existence, just not by the mere passage of time.

What does our immunity to aging mean for our life? What becomes of this transhuman condition?

We are probably still too “young” to know. It is not clear yet what will happen to the inner, contemplative aspect of our existence, to that intimate realm of thoughts and love and meditations considered by many theologians to be superior to the worldly realm of actions.

But in the realm of actions and interactions, for capsuleers already a first hint of a change has manifested itself in that small span of time since we came into being: A disproportionate number of capsuleers retire from public life.

Humans in all ages - before this one - enter the public life, not merely because bringing things into the public confers reality to them[2], but more so because it is the only way mortals can attempt to give permanence to things beyond their own finite lifespan. Our deeds, our words, the artifacts we make, they perish with us if we do not share them with others. But when potential lifespan knows no limit, there is no longer a need for a public to guarantee the permanence of such things.

In no other race is this retraction from the public to the private more evident than in the Jove, the oldest race to have conquered mortality. The need to engage with each other and with a common shared world seems to have dissipated in them altogether. The Sleepers have locked themselves out of the public sphere for good. And the Jovian disease I consider to be an extension of this condition from their active life to their inner or contemplative life - a hint of what lack of mortality does to the mind, in the end. 

[1] The Great Fall and subsequent coming of the Dark Ages has deeply rooted in our common subconsciousness the conviction that nothing humans can make lasts forever and that only God offers the eternal.

[2] Consider the question “Did you hear that too?” A perceived sound is only real when it is confirmed through shared experience. Note that reality and truth are not the same – while it may be very true that the person asking the question hears a sound, they consider that sound real only if others hear it as well.

Chained books

I researched the monastery's library for writings about the Order of Saint Tetrimon, in particular their early history in the Khanid Kingdom, after their banishment from the Empire. That is when they would have tried to smuggle ancient relics out of the empire.

Books like to hide from us. You think you put your book near the sofa, but it turns out to be at the bedside. The more books you have around you, the harder it gets to keep track of their location, especially in an ancient and undigitized collection. The easiest way was to actually chain books to the bookshelf or lectern. That way, they cannot get very far from where they are supposed to be. 

Now, for a small collection, you can just keep a list of all the books you have. But for a big collection, you will need help finding the book. That is where shelfmark tags come in. 

Books get a tag, usually on the spine, and that mark is basically a set of coordinates, like latitude and longitude for a planet's global positioning system. For example, if you see written in red lettering III A 3 you know the book's location is bookshelf III, right side (left one would be written in black), top shelf, third book - each successive coordinate in the label lets the librarian zero in more closely on the book's location.

On the side of the bookshelf or lectern, you can find a shelf list. That is also arranged "geographically". The top of the left column corresponds to the top of the left part of the shelf. The collection of various shelf lists is itself turned into a book, the very earliest versions of library catalogs, and its place is on the first lectern. 

The oldest volumes of the library of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl Monastery, the ones that date back to the days of the Khanid order of Paladins and their interaction with the Tetrimon knights, are not digitized or catalogued, but they do use the shelfmark tag system. 

After an entire day of getting my bearings using this ancient GPS, I found that what I am looking for should be on bookshelf LXXIII. 

However, between shelves LXXII and LXXIV is just a blank wall without bookshelf or lectern.

OOC picture credit: https://www.herefordcathedral.org/chained-library

Monastic libraries

There has been disconcerting news that the Drifters, during their incursions, have been torturing monks that they captured at a deep space monastery, just to find out the limits of their endurance. May God give them strength and reward their for their martyrdom. 

I am not sure what I can contribute against that threat, but I am grateful that Baron Redwolfe leads the counter-incursion fleets. So, both to take my mind off the atrocities reported in the news, and to help the baron where I can best, I went back to Neyi IV, to the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl Monastery. 

We recently provided climate control units for the Monastery's library so now I went back to inspect them. I found the place much improved; the units work well, and also repairs and proper insulation at the windows have been completed. 

Along with those repairs, the layout of the library itself, like many monastic libraries, helps keep the books in good condition. As is typical, it has long and fairly narrow rooms with vents to protect against damp atmosphere, with thick walls to keep temperature from following daily fluctuations. The lecterns project at right angles from the windows, providing adequate lighting, and they have slightly angular surfaces to lay out the books without straining the backs of the bindings. There are shelf lists affixed to the lecterns, to catalog the books on the nearby shelves - the precursor of the modern library catalog. Rules as these were laid out long ago in the Instructiones Custodem Librorum by Saint Aloysius of the Quill, a blessed doctor of the faith that I often pray to and hold very dear in my personal venerations.

Anti-drifter fleets

The Drifter crisis deepens; and now the Empress has called upon all to take our vengeance on the drifter abomination. For LUMEN, Baron Redwolfe has taken the initiative to lead our pilots. 

This does not surprise me, as chapter master of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl, the presence of Drifters should be especially enraging, and the Empress' call would resonate well with their reverance to the late Empress Jamyl.

From the early footage, I am seeing some resemblence between the new structures that appear during the incursions and ancient Talocan ones... I hope Baron Redwolfe and his fleet take time to get some footage and measurements on that.

Drifter incursions

Nothing good comes from the meddling of the Deathless with Jove technology, and his abductions of Upwell infomorphs for God knows what evil plan.

The Drifters are not taking this lightly. This time they are not using battering rams to try and enter Zarzakh... It is us who have become their target! The ACN has reported of skirmishes with Drifters in various parts of the Empire. 

There is no full scale invasion, but our navy is on high alert and working hard to keep us safe. Nevertheless, some systems have been undergoing incursions. The Drifters again use some sort of spacetime engineering, because in the systems where they do their incursions, ship velocities and warp speeds are increased. And they have found ways to diminish shield resists and drone effectiveness - that should not bother our fine navy ships that rely on armor and lasers! 

Our technology has much progressed since the time of their cowardly attack on Empress Jamyl, they will face the wrath of the faithful. I will urge capsuleers and baseliners alike in my next sermons to help cleanse Empire space from these devils and avenge the blasphemous attack on the Empress!

PS. Not all news is bad today - I was able to give lady Ashand, callsign 'Deceiver's Echo', the information file on her relative.