Lava lines

It was not easy to get hold of a planetary geologist on such short notice, just before Foundation day. During this major holiday most places are closed and folks go home to celebrate with family and watch fireworks in the park. But talking to a capsuleer -the rarest of breed- is always enticing and opens doors.

My next expert is dr. Torayedeh Vavari of the Gammel Geophysical Society. She is a young postdoctoral researcher in planetary sciences, specializing in the seismology of rocky planets. We met at the library of the society, she brought her child (she recently became a mother). Like many young researchers, she is quite ambitious and full of projects and ideas. 

The lava fields and large cracks in the planetary crust are recent. That can be seen from the cooling rate, as well as from motion of the surface as it settles back down after a shock. The original hypothesis is that the planet suffered a catastrophic meteor impact not too long ago. The small square in the image below shows the estimated point of impact. Close-by ridges circle it, and geologists identify at least four "rings of fire" of wide lava canyons and cracks partly circling it at larger distances, thousands of kilometers.  

The radius of the largest ring of fire is commensurate with the planet's radius, and dr. Vavari tells me that this is one of the signs that have put into question the hypothesis of a meteor impact. An impact gives a very directed energy with a clear signature on the opposite edge of the planet and scattering off the inner core. The patterns for this explosion are more in line with something that happened on or below the planet's surface, rather than a projectile hitting it from the outside. 

There is something not quite right with the radiation levels on the planet either. Just like the cooling rate temperature of the magma tells you it is still fairly young and hasn't been around for ages, the activity of radioisotopes can tell you something similar about these nuclei. The incident that devastated the planet coincides with a surge in radiation, compatible with an Isogen-5 explosion.

I cannot help but connect this in my mind to the Sani Sabik colonists. Although no technology available at that time could destroy a world, it seems too much of a coincidence to me that a natural cataclysm  of such magnitude would take place exactly around the time they would have made it to the planet. Dr. Vavari is sceptical and tells me that often the most simple hypothesis turns out to be the correct one - and certainly early-space age colonists blowing up a planet is very contrived.

That will not deter me to go and have a look at ground zero for this event. But first, I must return to Mehatoor for Foundation Day celebrations. 

The unmiraculous saint

I met with the expert in local history in Gammel, dr. Octash Quenai. He took me to dinner in a nice restaurant serving rockjaw stew.

Unfortunately our conversation was not very helpful. His historical records do not reach that far back, which of course makes sense since the Sabik cultists tried to escape to a system that at the time was uninhabited. We had not yet met other races, so all known inhabited worlds were in fact under control of the Emperor.

During our dinner, dr. Quenai went on a rant about the unfairness of the sanctification process. In particular he took offense against the requirement that saints performed miracles or intercede still in miraculous ways. He is preparing a beatification request for his uncle, who led according to him an exemplary life - building schools for the children of the impoverished - and is worthy in his view of being pronounced a saint. But he will not get past the stage of beatification and on to the stage of sanctification: there is not a single miracle that can be attributed to dr. Quenai's uncle.

Dr. Quenai took the entire evening to make his case for sanctification, and explain the injustice. He argued that the fact that little Jimmy passed his mathematics exam was, in fact, a miracle regardless of the opinion of the Theology Council. He repeated the uncle's life story in many different ways, illuminating the case from different perspectives, that of the uncle, of himself, of the children, of the teachers, of various people that crossed the blessed uncle's path, even of God. 

It dawned on me that he would keep going until he was certain that I was as outraged as he was about the affair. Only then he would conclude that he had properly impressed on me the gravity of the situation. Yet with every retelling of his grievances, while his outrage grew indeed, unfortunately so did my boredom. It was too late: I had arrived at a point where I could not even feign outrage.

I was saved by a lucky twist in his sprawling diatribe: the uncle had built these schools on barren worlds. Suppressing a yawn, I agreed that the barrenness of the location adds to the saintliness of the act. He casually added that "my" eleventh planet of Gammel used to be barren too, according to geologists. I jumped on that comment, and pushed the conversation back onto my own topic of interest. Now it was dr. Quenai's turn to be bored. He referred me to the Gammel Geophysical Society to find out why it is a lava world now.

May dr. Quenai's uncle, should he now be counted among the saintly hosts of heaven, grant me that tomorrow I find an expert that gets to the point quickly.

Scouting

It was nice to be of help to our pilots. As I focus on exploration I usually am not very useful in fleets (unless they need logi support, which I have been doing in the past). But this fleet just needed a scout in the bulwark systems. These are systems bordering the war zone, forming an impregnable defensive line against the Republic's agression.

Our pilots have been working hard to make the Blessed Exchange a success. One of the goals along the way is to clear these bulwark systems from Minmatar spy data outposts. My humble task was to go back and forth and scan down the systems for these data exfiltration sites, reporting them back for the fleet to sweep up. 

The fleet was joined by his eminence, archbishop Merdaneth. His mere presence deterred any Republic terrorists from trying to interfere, and our pilots were even more motivated to show their zeal in getting rid of the Republic's defensive frigates guarding the data canisters.

This activity also bought me a lot of good will from mr. Firth. In his good mood he wholeheartedly agreed on my plans for an expedition to Gammel.

I have contacted the Gammel Archaeological Society, and will be meeting up with an expert in local history at the Ministry of Assessment Bureau Offices station orbiting a moon around the tenth planet.

Sansha logs

I have received a rather large collection of old Sansha ship logs. These are unrelated to the ancient blood raider colony ship manifest that I discussed yesterday. They arrived in a big box, shipped to me by one of our pilots, Stephanos Varkonis. 

I do not know where he got them from - he sent them to me, and I have not yet seen him around to discuss it with to him. 

I remember that he is quite interested in an event that took place a while ago - a Sansha raid in and near Eve gate, back in YC113, with diversion manoevers in Yulai, I think. Perhaps his interest in that event is connected to something that happened to him in his past and left a mark on him. Or it could be just a hunch he wants to follow. Or a question he wants to answer - why would the Sansha make this special effort go to the gate?

The logs contain various transcripts of commands issued by Sansha Kuvakei and reports by his minions. It might be possible to reconstruct what happened, and who knows to answer the questions that mr. Varkonis has. But that will require finding the connections between these logs. 

I will have to lay them out as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in order to begin making sense of it all. Perhaps I should get one of these cork bulletin boards and some string, to pin the short messages on the board and connect related ones with the pieces of string...

The colony ship's destination

The destination of this cryoship is a barren world, the eleventh planet of a G-class star 5.9 light years from Amarr. They codenamed the system "The Old One". Nothing to do with current-day "Old Man's Star".

Taking into account a bit of slack, let us say 0.1 light years, there are still 15 systems between 5.8 and 6.0 light years from Amarr.

Of these, eight have a G-class star, namely Unkah, Raren, Hutian, Luromooh, Arayar, Gammel, Basan and Ana. Only Gammel in the Bleak Lands has eleven planets, the other candidates have less. So, that must have been their destination. However, the eleventh planet is not barren, but a lava world.

Usually lava worlds are found closer to their star, where the heat from the star in combination with tidal forces sometimes prevents the planet from cooling down. But it is not impossible to have lava worlds as outer planets, especially if there is a gas giant nearby or if the world is heated by a lot of internal radioactivity.

In those early days of astronomy, planets were detected either by tiny dips in the star's brightness as a planet passes in front of it, or by tiny wobbles of the star due to the gravitational pull of the planets - these wobbles are revealed by the Doppler shift in stellar spectral lines. Planets are much fainter than stars, so direct imaging of exoplanets took a while to develop, following breakthroughs in phased array telescopes. But if you can collect even a tiny bit of light from the planet, you can also make an educated guess at what planet type you have.

In general, the number of planets was under-estimated, rather than over-estimated, as small planets in far orbits are much harder to detect than, say, a gas giant in a close orbit. So, I guess it is unlikely that in those days the number of planets around their "The Old One" star was overestimated. It is more likely that they got the type wrong.

This must have been an unwelcome surpise when they woke up at destination...

Cargo manifest

The Lamp's mainframe completed my decryption job after priority computations about metaliminal storm predictions finished. It did not take long to break the primitive cypher.

The documents show that they were indeed preparing to start a colony and this was a one way mission. 

Cryosleep pods are listed in several classes. The manifest contains a few very expensive ones that basically serve also as a medbay, probably for their "prophet" and his family. Then 1858 regular ones, I guess the mainline colony members. Livestock ones for cattle... and three thousand small cryojars, for human heads!? Why did their bring frozen heads - surely not with the idea to revive them? Infomorph scanning and restoring were not available then. My guess is that it was for some blood ritual, part of their heresy.

The cryoship was large, to accomodate such a big group of people. It had energy and spares to last them well over sixty years in space, and half a year of supplies to get them started when they would reach their destination. The bulk of the cargo is machinery, building blocks, vehicles, and habitat prefab modules. They also have containers with cult objects, among them one that they must have cherished, the "Globe of Destruction". I have not yet heard of that relic, and will have to look up possible matches.

There is also a summary description of the cryoship itself. It seems to have been capable of landing (but not taking off again). They must have planned to dismantle it and re-use its parts in their colony. I'm not an expert in archaeological engineering but it seems to me built in a way that it can be taken apart piecewise with the equipment that they had with them on board.

Finally, there are tables with navigational data. Those I will try to use to see to where they were headed -  my initial guess is that it should be about six light years from Amarr; much further out would take them too much fuel given the duration they planned their cryosleep, and closer by they could have saved mass and fuel in their designs.

An ancient voyage

The old shipping records found in the library of the monastery of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl in Neyi prove to be of great historical value. They are listing preparations for a long voyage in cryoship, away from Amarr. 

Fast travel was only possible via jump gates. But these were still few, and well guarded. Access was restricted and strictly controlled after a foiled attempt in 21304 by fundamentalists to blow up Hedion gate. These fundamentalists were part of a heretical movement that believed it was sinful to go to other star systems and that we must remain in the one system that according to them God had destined us for. 

There were heretics with the very opposite view, too. Namely that they had to go away from Amarr, and start a new society in some promised world in order to freely pursue their false beliefs. These groups commissioned cryoships to go off into space without using the limited system of jump gates active then. This was often under false pretenses - economic or exploration. We had not invented warp drives yet, so journeys to other stars could last decades, during which most of the colonists would remain in cryosleep.

I think these papers reveal the preparations for such a journey by followers of a Sani Sabik self-proclaimed prophet fleeing the purges of Emperor Queron the Iron Fisted. 

A lot of it is in some sort of code - probably a primitive one based merely on some mathematical problem that takes a non-polynomial time to solve on a classical computer available in that age. I have digitized the texts, tables and ledgers, and submitted this as a easy decoding job to the Lamp's mainframe. 

Epikouria Chronicles XIV

Brother Hugo's latest letter came as a quick answer to my own missive informing him of the Vanguard. He appears happy that I "saw the light" about the Originals and the sinfulness of their experiments with infomorphs. He also mentions the so-called "digitals", sentient artificial intelligences that have been given citizenship by the Originals.

I remember my successful collaboration with Glitter Edifice - a prohibited artificial intelligence, a 'warmind' - and hope Brother Hugo does not read those log entries... 

Anyway, he writes that he has secured the collaboration of a Holder to bring into Epikouria crates of weapons and a battalion of Kameiras, belonging to the Holder's own House forces. They are bolstering the revolt of the White Paladins, by offering them training and assisting them in raids. For now, it is still a sort of guerilla uprising - on any open field they are no match for the Originals' armed forces. 

It has somewhat soured the relation between the Originals and the Starborn, even though the latter claim they have nothing to do with this local matter. I do not think they know of Brother Hugo's interference in local politics... Anyway, the Starborn say they are doing their part by providing customs offices, but if people use private launchpads then there's little they can do against that.

Nevertheless, even Brother Hugo has marked a reduction in the amount of industrial activity the last month or so. This could be due to reprisals by the Originals revoking mining rights - there has been a sharp reduction in the amount of resources mined and extracted from the planets. Also industrial stations have been taken down.

This may have other reasons: Brother Hugo notes that the Starborn seem somewhat restless of late, perhaps itching for new wormhole conquests? Publius and Isidorus are seen less often on station. I think this is due to their efforts for the Blessed Exchange, bringing them outside Anoikis more often, but Brother Hugo thinks something else is afoot.

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

VII. A suspicion of heresy

VIII. Pop-up church

IX. Intercultural fair

X. White Paladins

XI. Reactionary uprising

XII. Outside interference

XIII. Starborn and the Blessed Exchange

The Paper Age

I am happy to hear on Amarr Certified News today that the insurgency in Eredan has been quelled as well! No doubt in a couple of days traffic will flow as usual along the silk road connecting Amarr to Jita.

I had to head out the other way, today, towards the Kingdom, to Neyi IV. There, specialists from LUMEN's library are working on a restoration project for the old books and scrolls in the monastery of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl, along with the Order's own experts. It is a long project, as the monastery has been in decay for a long period before Baron Redwolfe discovered it. 

Most civilizations discover and use paper at some stage in their development. It usually signals a major transition, a turning point between a primitive and ignorant planet-bound society, and a digital society entering its space age. Paper and printing allow for ideas and knowledge to spread much faster than before, and it spurs discoveries and innovations. The Paper Age, usually lasting only a few centuries, is an inflection point. 

It is not only books that appear then, but also administration paperwork. That is an often undervalued part of the historical record, at least in popular accounts. But the true historian will value what others would find boring lists and ledgers and reports. During the Paper Age, the level of civilization is usually proportional to the amount of paperwork it produces and archives.

The library collaborators working on the restoration projects contacted me because they found a trove of old shipping records from the dawn of our space age, at the very end of our own paper age. These are records from an ancient shipping company called "Red Star Shipping", that we now know was a front for the Sani Sabik.

Vanguard

After the insurgency in Mehatoor has been quelled, the Angel Cartel gangsters have taken their racketeering and piracy to Eredan, and their corruption is now endangering freighters journeying between Amarr and Jita.

At the same time, Upwell convoys are targeted by a group of warclones, calling themselves the Vanguard. More lawlessness! 

This latest scourge is the result of the unholy and unnatural experiments of the Deathless, meddling with Jove artefacts out in his Fulcrum station in Zarzakh. In blatant disregard of the laws of God and humankind alike, these warclones exist as infomorphs without a body. They are stored (and perhaps live) in a virtuality they call "the garden of souls". If this sounds to you a lot like the sleepers in Anoikis, then you are right! The technology for both is similar, Jovian. 

The Deathless' pirate haven, Fulcrum, probably had an old store of these infomorphs, left in the freezer so to speak. The Deathless uses these disembodied infomorphs as a personal army, incarnating them into clone soldiers when and where he needs. That is the essence of the breacher pods that he developed for his ships.

Creating a disembodied or "ghost" existence is unnatural and sinful. It reminds me of the complaints of brother Hugo about the Originals in Epikouria, about the freedoms they take altering their bodies and minds. And not only the Deathless, but also Upwell is guilty of this sin. Upwell does not want soldiers, they wanted a controllable and easily transferrable workforce, via the so-called "Upwell workforce clone transfers". You can find them for example in Metenox moon drills. Many unlucky subjects of the Empress who chose "a new life with Upwell" ended up in a work clone in some forlorn factory, stored in infomorph stasis in between different jobs...

Now, both the Deathless and Upwell face retribution for their sins. A group of infomorphs -the Vanguard- appears to have fled from the Fulcrum, stealing a ship that stores the garden of souls and can be used as a basis of operations. This mobile operating base is their home, and they call it "Avalon". From there, they are raiding Upwell structures and convoys.

I will write to brother Hugo telling his about this development in Imperial space, as he might not have heard about it out in the wormhole. He can hold this up to the Originals as an example of how such sins lead to disaster ultimately. Divine justice cannot be escaped.