Geological strata

The preparations for the major celebration of the Empress' jubilee are in full swing, and Gottin's lamp in being decoration just like the rest of the station, as we are at the same time working hard to achieve the Blessed Exchange - completion seems within reach, given a final push.

Meanwhile, the geologists drilling down on the lava planet of Gammel XI are sending me an update. They have made great progress with the equipment that I have provided, and named a geological layer after me to thank me - the Savnar Layer.

It is in a layer that seems to be rich in organic materials, perhaps close to the original surface that had vegetation at the time of the cataclysm. It also contains black pyrite, a form of "fool's gold" not to be mistaken with the astrogeological pyerite mined by capsuleers. The geologists say the pyrite must have formed as the burned vegetation was pressed down into coal, creating an environment rich also in iron and sulphur. From its presence they surmise that the temperature cooled down rather quick (perhaps a couple of centuries) after the cataclysm, and indeed the layers deeper down appear colder. That is highly unusual.

I am not sure I should be happy to be associated with fool's gold. But on the other hand, these crystals also served as a touchstone, used by merchants before there were accurate balances. The precious metal content of a coin can be checked by rubbing it on the touchstone where it leaves a line that has a distinct color depending on the fineness of the alloy in the coin.

Their kindness comes with a request - they need new thermal hardeners, if possible tech-2 ones. The drill has hit a sort of cavern, but it has been damaged. When they brought it back up, it looked like it was cut off clean by whatever was present.

Numbers decreasing

My prediction did not pan out - the raspite goal is not yet completed. The rate at which mining is going on has dropped significantly. Not just for raspite, but also for the other mining goals, crokite and dark ochre.

I think this is related to the insurgency, at least for the latter two. The good crokite and dark ochre belts in the Bleak Lands are right where a new Angel insurgency is blossoming. Other places have been mined out and we will have to wait for those belts to replenish. As for the raspite, I have no clear view why it slowed. Perhaps we are starting to feel the upper limit of the number of pilots still wanting to participate to our efforts?

While here in Amarr we worry, meanwhile there have been fireworks displays in Dodixie and Luminaire, as the Federation reached their goals. 

This should be a morale boost for the Gallenteans, who under president Aguard had to face some failiures and scandals. The new president, Alix Moreau, begins her term under a better star and makes true on her promise to harness the power of drones for the Federation. Soon, new mining drones will be made available from their navy. They will also assert their link to the Intaki via a new jump gate connection.

The Zealous Equation

There is a bit more information that can be extracted from the completion graphs for the Blessed Exchange. The onset, the part of the graph before it reaches the linear regime, can be modelled too. It seems there at the onset, there is a certain number Nz of very zealous pilots, who want to accomplish the goal as soon as they can. Their number will decrease in time, since when they complete their contribution, they are done. 

Plotting their contribution over time on a long-linear scale reveals a line - which suggest and exponential time dependence. The number of contributions can then modeled as N(t) = Nz  [1−exp(−t/τ)], with τ being a typical completion time for a zealous pilot. Adding in the linear part, with a velocity of completion v, gives 

N(t) = Nz  [1−exp(−t/τ)] + v t

as a proposed fitting equation for the completion data. And indeed, it fits well! If we go back to our earlier example, the hacking in lowsec, then it gives this:

The blue dots are the data points observed, and the red graph is the result of the equation proposed above. From the fit we can read off a velocity of completion of 15 pilot contributions per day, and an amount of "lowsec-hacking zealous pilots" of around 190, with a time-to-zealous-completion of about 4 and a half days.

This can be used actually to estimate completion dates of unfinished goals perhaps slightly more accurately. 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let us see how well the extrapolation works. Let us look at the newest Raspite mining challenge. It is clear that the curve's overall shape is quite similar to that of the lowsec hacking one, but the scales are different:

Here, we see that there velocity of completion is rather high, about 100 pilot contributions per day. There are more casual miners, but the number of zealous highsec miners is somewhat less than the hackers: around 130. Perhaps more people feel that it is not needing such a hurry. But those that did decide to go at it immediately, have a small time to zealous completion, merely half a day. 

The extrapolation predicts it will be 100% completed on September 16th, around noon (12:00). 

If this predictio works out, it will give a bit of confidence in this type of fit. Then, using it, there is a good deal of information to be gleaned about the most zealous pilots of other empires as well, their numbers per type of occupation (miner/explorer/soldier) and their efficiency.

Blessed Exchange progression analysis

At the time of writing, 25 capsuleer goals out of 30 have been completed for the Blessed Exchange, and a few others seem on their way to completion. While circling raspite rocks and waiting an eternity for new belts to spawn, I processed some data on how such goals get fulfilled over time. 

I have found that most of these goals follow similar curves. As an example, I will show the "hacking in lowsec" goal, which required hacking of 25840 relic or data containers, with a maximum contribution of 34 cans per pilot - meaning it would take 760 pilots. It took nearly 40 days to complete.

The graph shows that as time goes by, at first there is a fast increase. This is no doubt due to the most zealous pilots jumping on the occasion of contributing to the Blessed Exchange. It then slows down to a nearly linear regime, of about 500 cans per day (about 15 pilot maximal contributions). I think this represents the steady flux of pilots who are not particularly devoted to our cause, but who like to earn the extra isk and perhaps seek to help all empires in their goals.

The above allows to estimate well the end date of a project, once the linear regime has settled in. In the table below, I list per goal that still needs to be completed how many pilot maximal contributions still need to be performed, and using the assumptions of linear growth, how many days it will still need to completion:

As you can see, some goals are completely unrealistic. The raspite is going well, but I have to note that it has not yet settled into its linear regime as it is fairly recent. Three goals seems achievable (green) and two will definitely need and additional push. We will still have four more goals to add to this list, at the time of writing they are still unknown.

Achieving the vision of our beloved Empress would be a magnificent present for the jubilee of Her coronation, but it is clear that this will still require perseverance and hard work.

Promoting the arts

I've stated it before: from the various vows that I took, the vow of poverty seems the hardest to uphold. That is true even if this poverty remains very relative as I am permitted to hold on to what I need for my quest of bringing back scattered holy relics to the Empire, such as exploration ships and the ISK needed to replace them. 

Nevertheless, simply doing one's duty to the Empire - be it during the Drifter crisis or recently for the Blessed Exchange, generates in influx of wealth. I tried handing the bounties and rewards back to the Navy before, but they flatly refused.

So, in light of the upcoming jubilee of our Empress, I decided to put up some of that excess cash as prize money for an artistic work in Her honor. That way it has been put to good use - and it sort of flatters me to see myself as a maecenas of the arts. And that in turn reminds me that I should be careful not to fall in the trappings of vanity.

For now no acceptable submissions have appeared, but these always come right before the deadline anyway. I did note that mr. Quirinus is not the only one suffering from delusions about the throne - I saw submissions claiming Jamyl is still empress, and claiming that Empress Catiz passed away a while ago. 

Perhaps these kind of delusions are more common than we think among capsuleers. The internal narrative that one constructs about oneself comes under pressure -perhaps from the many kills- and rather than adjusting to reality it becomes detached from reality. Capsuleers like to think of themselves as powerful and good, but when that image of goodness starts to crumble and causes the whole narrative to detach from reality, the aspect of power is left as a dangling bond, and can latch on to the Imperial throne.

Former rulers of X4-WLO

Having done all hacking and intel gathering I can for the Blessed Exchange effort, I am once again back to mining as this is the other non-violent way that I can contribute. But I am no miner, and lack the skills to always pick good Gneiss from worthless asteroids. It goes slow.

In between tedious Gneiss mining attempts, I did have some time to look at who was in charge of X4-WLO during the time of the Sansha incursions in Yulai, what some assume was a diversion for what they were doing at the same time in Promised Land. 

In the barbarian lands, capsuleer Kingdoms rise and fall faster than the proverbial flapping of a hummingbird's wings. On the day of the Sansha incursion, January 24th YC113, a group called Cascade Associates gained sovereignty in X4-WLO. Before, it belonged to the "Warhamsters" who must have felt they were going round and round in their hamster wheel going nowhere, since they abandoned the system in October the year before. 

That leaves an uncharacteristically long period where none of the capsuleer warlords held sway over that system. After that date, it gets transferred between corporations of the Cascade Associates, and then the corporation holding it switches to another alliance, En Garde, and it gets again handed from corporation to corporation without long intermittent periods.

I will try to see if I can find a warhamster that was around back in those days - perhaps they were driven out by Sansha or Blood Raiders, or have memory of anything unusual that happened there at the time.

Odd one out

Reviewing the Sansha logs again, there was one of them which drew my particular attention. 

Log 363587633 says "Blood Raiders invade our territory. Their pestilence is not welcome in the perfect eden of Sansha. The Power that Master Sansha has given us has enabled us great feats in the fight against the Raiders. An outpost has been built in X4-WLO, to ensure a firm foothold for the soldiers of Sansha in Blood Raider space."

But X4-WLO is not in Delve, the traditional Blood Raider region. It is in Catch!  

This means that the Blood Raiders are interested in X4-WLO, and probably its constellation. Why? I will try to look in the historical records about who was there in YC113. I suspect these logs date from around that time...

Old Sansha outposts

The Sansha logs retrieved by mr. Varkonis contain snippets of text by the minions of Sansha Kuvakei, mostly lauding and praising him and his efforts. But one thing they all have in common - they mention outposts where the pilots come from or have to head back to. 

And those are by no means confined to the Stain region, which according to the MIO Universe Factbook is the region of our cluster where the Sansha took refuge!

The logs have a identifier - a number. It is not clear what the number refers to, but it would stand to reason that it should somehow not only indicate which ship it belongs to but also be a datestamp. Indeed, the numbers seem to rise slowly, within a limited range. They paint a picture of outposts retreating back from our space down to Stain:

It is deeply troubling to see Boranai, Nidebora, Dabrid and Hadonoo in Imperial space on that list of Sansha outposts. Mr. Firth tells me not to worry, these are old logs and the outposts would have been cleared long ago. Nevertheless I plan to go and check out these systems. The rest of the systems trace a retreat to Providence, Catch and Stain.

But it doesn't stop there - systems in Esoteria and finally Paragon Soul outposts are mentioned in the logs with the latest identifiers...

PS. The yellow route on the map is simply an automatically generated route to go check all the systems,  in the map one should focus on the systems indicated.

((ooc credit: map made with https://evemaps.dotlan.net/ 's route planner))

No trace

I have delivered the supplies to the geologists on Gammel XI, they were very happy with this gift. 

After that, I went with a shuttle and scanning equipment to explore the region. I tried to find traces of any Sani Sabik colony or signatures of wreckage of their cryoship - they would have disassembled it to construct their colony but parts of it may have remained, and that would be scannable.

Alas - if there ever was a Sani Sabik colony here, there is no trace of it left. I found no signatures of ruins of a colony, and no sign of the remains of a cryoship. Either they settled elsewhere, or they were completely destroyed by the cataclysm that occurred here. 

It seems I am at a dead end here, and with not much to do I will return to Mehatoor, where the Sansha logs that I received from Stephanos Varkonis are still waiting to be investigated.

Drilling down

The research outpost is at heart a large drill, mounted on a stable platform, excavating a tunnel straight down. The tunnel itself is just short of a kilometer deep, but they want to drill much deeper to reach a pocket of interest, an old magma chamber that has emptied. It is the only one of its sort, and that is why they chose this location. Reaching it they hope to find clues about what happened from the minerals and gases that were encapsulated in that chamber. 

Drilling down is more challenging than it seems. One expects a thermal gradient as the borehole gets deeper, but here the geothermal gradient is far from ordinary, with local temperatures much in excess of what one could expect. Well, what one would expect on a world where some dynamic equilibrium has settled in - the current state of this planet is clearly far from equilibrated. 

In addition to the occasional lava chamber, there are are layers of high plasticity - meaning the surrounding rock can flow a bit. Not like water, but more like a river of thick paste that closes up any cracks and holes by itself and pushes anything in its way. The force of such flows can bend the tunnel walls or push it slowly away from verticality. 

To go down the tunnel I had to wear the thermal suit again, and go partly with shaky elevators, partly on ladders, while all sort of wiring and tubes were hanging around, attempting to shuttle the heat and materials back up, and transfer cap down to the bottom where the boring equipment is at work. The tunnel is about five meters in diameter, and we go down only in the central part. The wall itself is metal plate with cooling fins and equipment, and still it is searing hot and glowing in some spots - as if it is ready to burst.

All these difficulties are compounded by a more mundane difficulty: the lack of proper funding - materials exist that are better suited for this enviroment. Active hardeners against thermal damage, such as the one we use on ships, and special armor plates to reinforce the walls. These cost a lot, and need a lot of energy.

That is why they were enthusiast to see me. I am a capsuleer, and it is easy for me to buy thermal hardeners and cap boosts and armor plating and armor repair modules that they can adapt for the tunnel. 

I agreed to help them and buy the materials they need.