Summary YC127 part 3

Hypothesis 3 - Alien abduction. With the Jove as the prime suspects. They are known to roam the stars searching for powerful artefacts, that they might consider remnants of races even more ancient than they, and that they certainly consider dangerous in the hands of fledgling young civilizations. They would confiscate such artefacts. So, the hypothesis is that the Ametat and Avetat, certainly powerful enough to be on their radar, would have been confiscated.

This hypothesis - in a slightly altered version - is favored by the Goner sect, as explained to me by the reclusive brother Sarachem who is flying sub-warp to eve gate in a corvette. The goners told me that the Ametat and Avetat are hidden along with the relic that they seek, the Anticipator device that opens Eve gate, and kept in an unspecified asteroid belt in Jovian space. 

There is enough additional evidence that at least under the Jovian Directorate of the third empire, there were specific Jovian agencies in charge of searching for and retrieving powerful artefacts. Over the years, I have tried to gain access to Jovian space, and even talked to some capsuleers who managed to get there. However, they seem to have returned with a certain madness - perhaps an exponent of the Jovian disease. 

Linked to this are the various Jovian offshoot that have not disappeared from the cluster. It is widely assumed that the Sleepers in wormhole space also represent part of Jovian culture. So, with no access to Jovian regions, perhaps a way can be found via Anoikis to reach it, or at least to gain more information about the Jovians. 

Again, as with the Takmahl, there is a tantalising link to the ancient Talocan as well - it is this ancient race which engineered the wormhole network of Anoikis (somewhat broken after the Seyllin incident). These Talocan (and their stalactites) seem to be a common denominator, so it is with a resolve to learn more about them that I plan to continue my search in the coming year, and that I conclude the current status update on my quest.

Summary YC127 part 2

Hypothesis 2: According to this theory, the Ametat and Avetat were absconded by the Sani Sabik at the start of our era of space exploration. The Sani Sabik cultists had infiltrated our institutions but were forced to flee during the purges of emperor Queron I, the Iron-Fisted. They took to space in cryoships and started the Takmahl Empire in the Araz constellation. Ilash Toth tried to get the relics back, but failed. The Takmahl Empire grew powerful, but collapsed suddenly after a few centuries, taking the relics with it to its grave.

I have reported before on the mounting evidence pointing to this hypothesis, which was also investigated by prof. Bathana, Luna's archaeologist father. More evidence was found during my explorations of Gamis, but I cannot report on those due to an agreement with the Ministry of Internal Order. 

The main question to answer is what happened to the relics after the collapse of the Takmahl empire. I have found strong indications -contrary to common belief- that the Takmahl could reach further out that their own constellation of Araz. Two years ago, I started looking into the "Blood highway" connecting the Takmahl heartlands to Delve, through Aridia. Some current-day Blood Raiders consider themselves heir to the Takmahl, and it is clear that Takmahl artefacts are highly prized among them. Indeed, I found a functioning biodrone in an abandoned Blood Raider station in Aridia two years ago. 

Again, it appears that prof. Bathana near the end of his life was also tracking the Blood highway, as he went to Anath, a system at the edge of the Empire. That is where I will need to pick up the trail next year. 

This year I have also been investigating the link between the Takmahl and the Talocan - this far more powerful and far more ancient race that also influenced the Jove. Most recently, I have been intrigued by the realization that the holy rock at the center of the Takmahl labyrinth may be linked to the Talocan rock formations in other parts of the cluster and in wormhole space. I am thinking that these rocks held some religious significance for them, that was passed on to the Takmahl and perhaps even the Drifters. There is more to these stalactite rocks than meets the eye - could they house internal structures or hiding places? That is the second lead I need to follow up.

Summary YC127 part 1

Hypothesis 1 : the Ametat and Avetat stayed with us much longer than we nowadays assume. They were held for safekeeping by the Council of Apostles and the Speakers of Truth. These institutions, at first meant to advise the Emperor, transformed into forces that would keep the Emperors and the Holders in check. Finally, the Council would try to usurp the God-given power of the Emperor. When Heideran V attempted to restore Imperial power, civil war known as the Moral Reforms ensued. As the Council of Apostles faced defeat, the Order of Saint Tetrimon was charged with keeping the relics - symbolizing the Imperial power - out of the hands of the Emperor, and hid them.

This hypothesis is corroborated by historical records showing beyond doubt that Grand Master Tetrimon IV smuggled out all sorts of relics for safekeeping at the end of the civil war. Little is known about these relics from the time before the Moral Reforms, as scripture has been reworked heavily by Heideran V and the Theology Council that he created after the civil war. However, the Tetrimon are supposed to still have copies of the original versions of scripture, those versions that were tainted by the heresy of the Council of Apostles but that also contained historical clues. 

Over the years, I tried in vain to access these records at their ancient headquarters, the fortress of Teakh Tak-Teakh on Ibani VI, planet of the singing ice, and also at their new space monastery in Thebeka. However, they keep their records very private - afraid of being found heretical, I think. Many of their writings seem to advocate shifting power to commoners and leaving the Emperor with less than absolute power, in contradiction of scripture, Book I 1:14 or Book of Reclaiming 3:21. So, it is not surprising they restrict access. I was stuck.

This year however, I made headway! God's providence brought Baron Redwolfe's legacy to the Societas. Trough his ancestry, he is linked to the Tetrimon - today he leads a related order called the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl. He has uncovered on his holdings an ancient monastery of Khanid paladin knights, where there is a library that holds copies of texts and scrolls by the Order of Saint Tetrimon. I found the Vita Magistrorum Magnorum of Tetrimon IV, which led me to find one of the hiding places of ancient relics, deep inside the forbidden city of Mezagorm. Unfortunately, these were not the relics of Ametat and Avetat, but still we recovered important lost relics of the legion of Ves-Udor. 

While these were not what I was looking for, it does give me confidence that I am on the right track. There is still a lot more to uncover in the Vita, and I will pursue this further in the next year.

Reflecting on the past year

The days of the Yoiul celebrations and the turning of the year inspire people to look back and reflect upon the year that passed.

As the veterans of the Societas know well, I have received long ago a quest to fulfil. It was given to me by Saint Tal-Romon, who visited me in a vision when I was still a monk cloistered in an asteroid monastery. The mission I have been given is seemingly impossible, and has been attempted by countless people before me: to find and return the most holy relics of the Empire, the lost Ametat and Avetat, the sceptre and crown given by the Sefrim to the first emperor, Amash-Akura. 

It is no coincidence that God led me to join the Imperial Society of the Sceptre and Crown, our Societas whose full name is indeed "Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque".

Over the years I have been able to formulate several hypotheses of what happened to these relics, and I am following up leads on each of those, along a winding path. Over the coming days, I will review each of those leads in turn and log my progress report for them.

-to be continued-

Epikouria Chronicles VII

Brother Hugo's latest letter reveals that business is going about as usual in the Epikouria colony. Industry seems to have expanded, as do anti-piracy efforts against the ever-present roaming bands of wormhole miscreants. Mostly, folks have settled in and gotten into a comfortable routine in Publius' colony. 

Mining and resource extraction are booming after trade and sovereignty agreements were finalized with the Originals. In exchange for unfettered access to the bountiful deposits on the planets of Epikouria, system-wide space security as well as regular connections and transport to trade hubs are provided by the Starborn. Diplomatic missions and embassies have been established on most planets, and the Originals have a diplomatic mission on Ouranos, the main station and space-home of the Starborn. 

Stories about the Originals trickle down to the Ardishapur quarter in the lower decks. Although the Originals keep their own personnel inside their diplomatic zone, folks working in the station do see these foreigners going about, and stare. Although many of the Originals appear human, some are heavily augmented, and there are even cyborgs and biodroids. There is talk about sentient AI's walking among them. All in all, they seem to be a extremely heterogeneous group, exploring the limits of what they can do with their bodies and infomorphs.

Brother Hugo is collecting evidence of all sorts of heresies among the Originals. There are signs that some of them are Sani Sabik cultists. Of course, sentient AIs are also forbidden - by all four empires. And he has also found some proof, he writes, that the Originals flaunt the cloning laws, and allow the use of multiple clones simultaneously by a single person. He writes, "The more we get to know them, the more horrors and heresies we uncover". 

To find out more, Brother Hugo plans to go with some of his companions to planet VI. That is the home world of the Originals, which they call "Renaissance". It hosts their capital, "Foundation City" and has the largest population of all the planets in the system. Publius' colonists, such as the good brother, cannot just go about anywhere freely on the Original's home world, but there is a 220 square kilometer area designated for meeting, trading and cultural exchange. It is called the "Free Trade Friendship Zone", and has a spaceport where shuttles from the colonists can land. Brother Hugo has filed for a permit to visit.

Links to keep track of the letters of Brother Hugo:
I. First Contact
II. Diplomatic Talks 
III. Refugee crisis
IV. Setting up a new home station
V. Epikouria under siege
VI. Prince Seraghis visit

Writing awards night

This weekend the awards ceremony took place, in which books and works of capsuleers are honored. It is always interesting to see what we should get for the library - although one has to be extra careful to screen for heretical writings.

To my delight some fellow researchers were present. Dr. Fritte Cornelius, with whom I recently collaborated on a project in Sanctified Vidette, and Ninavask of the Syenose Accord, who sold me a Talocan life support unit during the rare items fair. 

We got into an interesting discussion on extracting energy from celestials for spacetime engineering, and I do hope we get to collaborate on that topic as well. Science knows no borders, but sometimes I fear we work in a bubble in each of our four core empires. Events such as the award ceremony bring us together,  and are wonderful occasions to forge new plans for joint projects.

Also, Fritte got an award for some of his earlier scientific work, well deserved! 

The first prize in the academic category went to a book about ground crews, by Kirin Freir. It is a very useful manuscript that mixes business advice and human resource wisdom, putting it all together in a pedagogical primer. I have been reading through it and it has got me thinking. I have a crew on board of  the Indigatrix, of course, but not really a ground crew in our Mehatoor home. I just use the services that the station provides. However, mr. Freir's book convinced me of the usefulness to hire dedicated personnel for that purpose. I will put up an advert on Mehatoor's hangar message boards.

The first prize in proze and poetry was actually poetry, by someone with the pen name Dark Magni. Although very evocative and dynamic, the poem is indeed somewhat dark. It leaves space open for one's own interpretation. Could the character who flew "on his path grim" be an emissary from above, pushing us to fight on and do our duty? Or is it a commander running away from the fray, or perhaps someone scolding us for having failed? I will have to re-read it to savour the different layers of the poem.

The Conflux Stalactite

It is not that obvious to find the Drifter homes that are not monitored by the Empire. Conflux Eyrie is controlled by the State, and since our alliance cooled down they are not that forthcoming with information. 

I did not receive a direct answer to my request about the location of an entrance wormhole. Mr. Firth took some notes and looked annoyed, even though he says this is to be expected. Nevertheless, on our own we did find an entrance, and proceeded to scan down the system and investigate.

What I found there is deeply disturbing.

Contrary to what I saw in Sanctified Vidette, there are plenty of bands of roaming Drifters in Conflux Eyrie. We located the stalactite asteroid, and when I went over to scan it down for detailed telemetry, I found a host of Drifter ships at the small station at its foot.

They appeared to be interacting with the disabled sentry guns around the abandoned station (or colony, or prison, who knows what it used to be). Luckily, the Indagatrix was cloaked and I could observe undetected. Several battleships and many cruisers were present:

And then it happened. The entire stalactite asteroid seemed to phase, or rather, to be enveloped by some sort of Drifter overshield shimmer,

They must be drawing energy from this rock, interacting with it, using it in some way that the sensors on the Indagatrix could not make out. I have not seen this before in the other stalactite asteroids. Does it contain some hitherto unknown ore, providing a kind of radiation they can use? Are these rocks more than just ancient relics of a bygone Talocan religion? Is this really a rock, or could it be some camouflaged mothership or station?

After the "powering-up", some sort of entrance tunnel lit up, in the middle of the rock:

At this point, I am not allowed to share anything else since mr. Firth wants our full report with telemetry to stay under wraps as it gets sent to the Ministry. But let there be no doubt - the Drifters are far from vanquished in the systems that we have conquered. The Empire may have a firmer grip on Sanctified Vidette than the State on their hole, but the Drifters are up to something.

This has strengthened my conviction that I need to revisit the Takmahl Stalactite asteroid. I also want to keep a closer look on the Conflux Eyrie artefact, and perhaps try to enter the asteroid via that tunnel. I could not approach it too closely with the Drifter fleet patrolling it - any accidental uncloaking of the Indagatrix would mean its immediate demise at the hands of the nearby Apollo Tyrannos. Finally, I also need to figure out what sites the other Drifter homeworlds still hold, perhaps there are more of those asteroids or related objects.

Stalactite asteroids

Something at the edge of my memory kept nagging me, and kept me from sleep. Something I had seen in a Drifter home system. Unable to catch sleep, I started looking through the image database of the Indagatrix. Drowsy browsing goes slowly but in the end I found the corresponding log, and the monstruous rock formation I saw during the Drifter war.

Compare the Drifter rock (left) to the Takmahl holy rock (right): 

There is to me a striking resemblance. The asteroid singled out by the Drifters for special treatment (with a station in the small round rock just before), and the rock at the center of the Takmahl are both "stalactite asteroids". They have spikey protrusions pointing to melting and resolidification in a strong uniaxial field. This strengthens my conviction that these particular types of stalactite asteroids held a particular significance for the Talocan, as this ancient race is the only common link between Drifters and Takmahl!

I have to find this rock back - it was not in Vidette, but in Conflux Eyrie according to the logs. And I also have to head back to the Takmahl, for better scans and probing of their asteroid. 

But first I have to catch up on sleep.

Talocan rocks and labyrinths

The Jove are thought to have found the ancient Talocan wormhole control network and gained access to the wormhole cluster Anoikis via it. The Jovian wormhole settlers are believed to be the forefathers of the Sleeper civilization. And many experts (including authorities in the field such as Uriel Anteovnuecci) theorize that the Drifters are, in turn, offshoots from the Sleepers. This is a reasonable assumption, given that they live in Anoikis. In addition, technology such as the thermo-electric convertors that the Drifters use to power their structures clearly bear the hallmark of the Sleepers.

The start of the chain of knowledge transfer for advanced spacetime engineering seems to be the Talocan, and this begs the question of whether the Drifter's Nexus superstructure is also based on Talocan spacetime engineering. And since the Nexus appears to influence spacetime also in our own cluster (via the appearance of phased fields), I would conjecture that it could influence other structures in our cluster as well, namely structures built with the very same Talocan spacetime technology.

The main "suspect" for me is the Takmahl labyrinth. There is a link from the Talocan not only to the Drifters but in parallel also to the Takmahl. The Drifters chose wormholes which have certain rock formations that are of particular ritual importance to the Talocan. Those are very much different from the asteroids found in belts in common Anoikis systems. Also the Takmahl incorporated most unusual rock formations in their cult.

The Talocan must have liked labyrinths too, and both Drifter and Takmahl cultures indebted to them have inherited this peculiar penchant for mazes. Although they are very different in nature, spacetime engineered labyrinths have been found in both Drifter and Takmahl home systems.

This makes me wonder whether the current changes in our spacetime allegedly due to Nexus tinkering may have induced changes in the Takmahl labyrinth too. I am planning to revisit it, but will need to enlist the help of SFRIM pilots to keep the Blood Raiders that infest that labyrinth at bay...

Pinning the blame

As I predicted, foreign news commentaries are trying to pin the blame on the Empire again - however this time we are not the only scapegoats. The phase anomalies appearing in spacetime have a similar energy signature as the Drifter Nexus superstructures, and so their appearance seems connected with the experiments that the five powers occupying Drifter wormholes are performing on those structures.

From my own observations, the Empire is dealing with the Nexus with great precaution and care. We have no doubt learned from the Turnur sabotage disaster. 

Dr. Cornelius thought that EDENCOM was not so careful, and went out to set up watch there expecting something bad to happen, but I have not heard from him since. It does seem suspicious that ORE - who is in an industrial partnership with EDENCOM - all of a sudden possesses the technology to anchor down these phase anomalies and exploit them for mining.

Personally, I think the Triglavians are behind this. They do not seem to mind much about our spacetime - that is the least you can say after the creation of Pochven. They must have the same disregard for the integrity of our spacetime when it comes to prying around into the Nexus superstructure.