Relic sites

As I traveled to Oris, I scanned down and hacked some relic sites along the way. The exercise went well. I was able to hack into these relic sites without too much trouble. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing but some old cables and wiring left. Nothing that reveals the habits of ancient cultures. 

I was about to throw the junk out of the airlock when mr. Gelfanth, my chief engineer on the Indagatrix, told me these things fetch a nice price on the markets. So, it seems there is another way, besides project Discovery, to earn ISK without killing anyone. And this way, I may even stumble on some lost knowlegde of our glorious past!

Two worries

Two things to be nervous about.

First, Lunarisse has offered to introduce me to Lord Lok'ri, the theologian that I have cited before. Apparently, he also holds a certain fame as a capsuleer in PIE and he is Chapter Master of that noble order. I will go to Oris, to the Excubitoris Chapter house, in the hope to meet him through the kind intercession of the Directrix. I am feverishly sorting and re-ordering all the questions I want to pose to Lord Lok'ri, never reaching consensus with myself as to what to ask precisely. I'm afraid that at the very meeting I will just freeze - this is why I must prepare.

The trip to Oris will also be a good occasion to try out the upgrades of the Indigatrix. I want to try finding relic sites with its upgraded sensors and scan probes.

 

Second, the girl Ishta has offered to educate me about contemporary music. I am eager to learn about the temporal world and society I now find myself in, and I am grateful for the offer. Ishta seems quite comfortable navigating the modern world - maybe a tad too comfortable. I just hope her music choices won't be too... Gallente.

Meditation on sin and redemption

I came upon a beautiful meditation on sin and redemption, by Nicoletta Mithra. I found it very inspiring, so I am noting it down here to find it more easily:

If sin consists in hurting oneself, by ignoring God, then, really, the damnation is not consequence of sinful action. Sinful action already is damnation brought onto us by ourselves. What could be more immense, what could be more swift and decisive? And if we go on this path of sin, then it will eventually our end. Tolerance is limited.

On the other hand, there is the Scriptural promise of Reclaiming and redemption. Similar to damation comes salvation. It’s not the reward for aligning yourself with God: Salvation consists in being aligned with God. Redemption, then, is re-alignment with God and it is always open, if even incrementally, as long as we can do just that.

The Index

I am settling in a bit, in the new role of librarian. It is a beautiful library, but there is some work to do. Every year, the Theology Council's sacred congregation of the index publishes the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, also known as the red book because long ago it used to have a red cover. By now the list is too long to fit in a paper book, and it is only available on datapad, but it kept that nickname.

 

The Index lists the publications that are deemed heretical or unsuitable for the faithful to read without guidance and help from a theologian or clergy member. Index YC123 is out, it is updated yearly. Most notably, this year's Index adds to the list all volumes published in the previous year about Sedevacantism. We don't have these in the library. But nevertheless there are some other books that need to be purged. I am mostly concerned about some lewd titles that appear to be lent out regularly.

 

I feel safe and at peace between books, and I always feel unhappy when I have to get rid of books. I wonder if there is a separate, closed off section of the library that can be used to store the prohibited books so they can be consulted under strict guidance, or if I should just dispose of them... Well, certainly the world will not suffer a great loss if we incinerate "fifty games you can play with your pussy", which -as the Theology Council recently found out- is not about cats at all.

Generational Inherited Sin

I've spent the day contemplating my new status as a member of a corporation. On the one hand, it means giving up some independence, but on the other hand it means finding an anchor, and fellowship. I miss my brothers at the monastery - they were a true family to me. Maybe it is this longing which drove me to apply.

 

The interview was interesting, even if it took place in a bar. It had been a long time since I felt I had a good discussion on theological matters!

 

I learned about a recent school of thought that says slavery is meant as a penance for sins, a kind of transaction with God. This theory has an obvious difficulty: how can newborn babes have sinned?  And yet, they are born in slavery. To accommodate for this tension, one must believe in the inheritance of sin - like a debt inherited from your parents that you would have to continue repaying. 

 

But then another question arises: if the word of God was never brought to the barbarians, how could they sin against it? Should one not knowingly go against the word of God for it to be a true mortal sin? This is how I would interpret Missions 5:14,

"Which test reveals more of the soul, the test that a man will take to prove his faith, or the test that finds the man who believed his faith already proven? If you know this answer, then you also know which of these challenges bear the greatest penalty for failure. The gates of paradise will open for you one time only; woe to the soul who dares to knock twice."

It is also in the name we give to the taking of slaves: it is not called the Reconciliation (after penance), but the Reclaiming. To reclaim is to bring what fell out of the light and was lost in the dark night of ignorance, back into the fold by bringing to it the word of God, as is stated Book of Reclaiming 4:45,

"So the Lord sent forth the Chosen,
to bring forth the light of faith
And those who embrace his love
Shall be saved by his grace"

Reclaiming is lighting the other's extinguished candle, or giving them one, in the analogy I described for the faith a couple of days ago. That newborn flame requires a lot of care before it can burn brightly on its own, and for that education and training is needed. That is very different from receiving payment.

Gaven Lok'ri of PIE has written about it in a much more eloquent way than I could. For him the idea of generational inherited sin was part of Kernherism. I would argue that more recently and more clearly it can be linked to Sedevacantism.

 

Joining a corporation

 I took the step. 

 

"Surround yourself with the faithful, Stand together, for there is no strength like it under the heavens."
- The Scriptures, Book of Missions 71:21

 

I applied for the job of librarian at Khimi Harar's library in Mehatoor, and in doing so I also chose to become a member of that corporation. There was an intake interview in... the bar. An odd place to hold an interview. I had expected a formal office, and not a drinking den with comfortable plush cushions and all sorts of luxury. And a bunch of other capsuleers who pretend to do their business but have ears as big as soup plates to listen in. I was also suprised to see a PIE member in their bar, given the recent disagreements between these two societies...

I think I made the right decision. We will see, if I am forced to go against my holy vows, I can always resign and seek my fortune elsewhere. But for now, I can see no better place for an Amarrian scholar to find like-minded souls.

Back at the library

I have returned to Mehatoor, after a detour to shop for parts for the Indigatrix. She is now completely upgraded, with much improved capacity to scan for anomalies and hack relic sites.

 

Time to take stock. I've followed the Ilash Toth lead to New Eden, and met the Goners. I learned about a science expedition of the Republic, which is something I must investigate further. I also confirmed that the gate is indeed not an object in the New Eden system, to all likelihood.

 

Now, I will turn back to the second theory that I am looking into: the Takmahl. I left this line of research aside for a while, as I was in New Eden, and now I will return to it. I will begin with making contact with the Arataka Research Consortium and in parallel try to learn about cryoships.

In transit

I left a clone and the Ratakh Hubrau in New Eden. I have a feeling the Gate will call me back to her erelong. The exploration vessel will come in handy then.

As I make my way back to Mehatoor, I feel like a northerner descending from the desolate polar region to the inhabited world. Long ago, the people from the polar region of Amarr used to trade in bear skins and various other warm furs. I did not encounter polar fauna, but I trade in ship skins. It seems that there is not just the cash payoff from project discovery, but you also get some vanity items as rewards in kind, like clothing and a bunch of these "skins". And, it also seems that capsuleers pay hard cash for these items. Not all, some can't be traded for a quafe, while others -probably for more rare ships- fetch a handsome price.

 

With the funds, I plan to upgrade the good old Indigatrix. I will strip it bare to reuse the modules, and replace the hull by an Anathema class hull that should become even more useful as I finalize covert ops cloaking.

Meditation on the meaning of scripture

God gives us three gifts, as we come into this world. Three gifts to help us journey from our origin, through the dangerous dark cold universe, towards our end.

The first gift is a blanket called love. You can wrap this blanket around yourself, to keep you warm.

The second gift is a staff called hope. You can lean on it, you pull yourself up out of lethargy with it, and it helps you to move forward.

The third gift is a tiny flame called faith. You hold it in the palm of our hand, and it needs to be tended to and to be nurtured. Its light will show you the way through the darkness.

The most important message of scripture is that these gifts are not meant just for you, they are meant to be shared.

Wrap your blanket around others, and it more than adds the warmth of the other to yours. If you only wrap it around yourself, the cold will creep up through its folds.

Extend the staff to others, to pull them up. It is more than twice as hard to break two joined sticks than one. But, if you hold the staff close to your chest it will be useless.

Share your flame and light the extinguished candle in the hand of another, and the path will be illuminated more than twice as brightly. If you would close your hand in an attempt to keep the flame for yourself, it will be extinguished. 

This, to me, is what our Amarr scripture tries to tell us. It is what I try to live up to.

The rise and fall of the Goners

Finally, my expedition to New Eden can draw to a close. Through the sparse interactions with the Goners and their former associates, and through a study of their manuscripts, I can now form myself a more or less accurate and complete picture of their history.

Brother Sarachem indeed wrote the main scripture that started the Goner movement. He received his revelations in a vision and wrote it down while he was working at Hedion University. It is a rather apocalyptic vision, those that use violence in New Eden will be struck down, and those that reject it will be saved and allowed to return to Mother Earth, guided by Goner Father who is an earthling that gave Amarr its technology.

 

His manuscripts were found to be heretical, and soon enough Sarachem found himself dismissed from his position at Hedion. Since he did not publicly recant, he was banned and exiled from Amarr. An inquisitor initially came after him, but Sarachem was deemed rather harmless, and other pressing matters at the time took precedence for the Theology Council Tribunal. So, after that initial interest, the council seems to have altogether forgotten about him, or chose simply to ignore him.

He fled to New Eden, the only logical place for him to go, as his revelation is about Mother Earth. This is a planet as well as a mythical protector goddess. The way to reach her and find redemption is to go through Eve gate – and use the “anticipator” key to open it. This key is stored at a hidden location somewhere in a Jove system with dense asteroid belts. The mythical Goner Father, an immortal person born on Mother Earth, is supposed to have access to it, and to use it occasionally.

Others joined Sarachem in exile, like Father Sartorius, the self-styled "Mentor of Eve constellation". Through preaching, their movement grew and soon they had a sizeable congregation. In addition to the pilgrimage to the gate, the Goners introduced a pilgrimage in nullsec in which the pilgrim must circle all the way around Empire space. During the pilgrimage around the rim of the cluster the Goners will take confessions of any nullsec passerby who talks to them. From this they received more donations and outside help, and with that influx of ISK a golden age began.

With the donations they constructed a home, a space station that was to be their Temple. To manage it, they started associate corporations for lay sympathizers. That way, they could continue to concentrate on prayer and preaching, while their lay corporations would handle worldly affairs for them. But, not all those that enlisted were as pure of spirit as the Goner monks. They started to accumulate wealth, used the station to trade in all sort of contraband. They grew greedy. They made enemies.

At some point, the Goner monks were betrayed and attacked. They cast out the traitors, but due to their vow, the monks could not fight. Luckily many loyal sympathizers still helped them, and in a fierce and valiant battle they were able to drive back the unholy horde that had laid siege to their home. However, their resources were rapidly depleted in comparison to the war coffers of the enemies aligned against them. They had won a battle, but not the war.

Their enemies regrouped and struck again. This time, their Temple was destroyed. Dejected, many left their congregation and joined other alliances, such as Red Alliance. Other monks remained in the station as fire blasted through it, and they disappeared into oblivion along with their burning Temple. Those that remained alive continue the pilgrimages to do penance for mankind. My impression is that they mainly do penance now for the acts of their apostate associates.

As for my own quest: they do believe that the ancient relics are not lost, and that the crown could have given Toth the insight to go to Mother earth. However, they could not offer evidence of that.

 

I'll wrap up my expedition and in a couple of days move back to the 24th Imperial Crusade station in Mehatoor and its very comfortable library.

Goner Apostates

I am slowly getting the full picture on the Goners, but they remain quite reluctant with information.

The Inquisitor in me spoke up: if the subject is immune to interrogation, interrogate the loved ones (okay for the original quote your have to replace "interrogate" by "torture"). The Goners also have apostates. Capsuleers that were part of their organisation, intimately, and that left them to pursue wealth. I identified several former high-ranking members that were associates to the most imporant Goners. Foremost among them is Loana en Tevaline, now member of the Red Alliance. I will contact her to complete my history of the Goners.

Today, I also talked once again to Kitteh. She has docking rights in the SFRIM station. But she is looking for purpose in her life, completely fed up with what she did - piracy. She says she never killed for ISK, but she feels really bad about herself, she also flies to the Gate just to calm her mind these days. I talked to her and I think she needed someone who listened. We also talked about the faith, I explained her about what I was doing, she seemed interested, she never considered research and archeology. I offered to intercede with Aspenstar to recommend her, I think if she could join an honest corporation it would help her to do things beyond piracy, and maybe to clear her name at least with our Empire. She bailed. I will try again.

Barbarians at the Gate

When the Goners were at the height of their fame a bit less than a decade ago, they had also quite some adepts in the Republic. Their stories reached the ears of the Republic's admiralty, and in time the brass got convinced that Eve Gate was an important strategic goal. The secrecy of the Servant Sisters only strengthened this conviction. An added bonus for them would be to find Toth's expedition and loot Ametat and Avetat. I can only imagine how they would gloat if they would find it. How they would put it to use diplomatically or maybe desecrate these relics to sap our morale. I reassure myself that God would not allow that.

Anyway,  they decided to send a exploration fleet. Not just a couple of cloaky frigates, though! No, none less than the fourth science fleet of the Minmatar Republic! A capital fleet, with three Nidhoggurs and a Ragnarok as flagship, accompanied by Tempest battleships and frigate squadrons. Footage of this is still around, as well as some stills such as the figure below.

Their plan was to use the position of the Goners to go as close as they could to the Gate by conventional means. The ships had been fitted with experimental technology, as regular warp drives cannot find an endpoint to latch on. I guess this is what professor Moriarty also tries to develop. Indeed, the experimental warp drives on these ships would not require an end point to go to warp.

In typical Minmatar impulsive fashion, these prototype warp drives hadn't been extensively tested, and would just be field-tested on the first mission. At first, things went well, they cynoed in to New Eden and caught up with the Goners. But then, the experiment went wrong: the warp drives malfunctioned due interference with the radiation from the gate. This resulted in the engines blowing up soon after... In the explosion, the entire exploratory fleet was lost.

This was such a costly fiasco that no other fleets followed. The other empires somehow got news of this, and also decided they didn't want to bother with the New Eden system - to great relief of the Sisters. And the Goners? They chalked it up to a divine intervention of Goner Father, punishing the Minmatar fleet because it came with weapons primed.

Reading the Goner's writings

I am spending more time flying with the Goners. Yesterday, there were two of them at the same time in the system. I am learning more about them, but information is only obtained piecemeal.

I  have also resumed my reading of their writings. There are some really interesting historical notes in early works. Unfortunately, some of the latter tomes are about as exciting to read as a market ticker tape. And, for some other of these newer books, I suspect some authors of being under the influence of very psychoactive mushrooms. Some writings also contain subtly treasonous parts - as an example I quote a part on the return of Empress Jamyl: "But it is good in you that you hate the Empress's deeds, which I also hate."

Also professor Moriarty is still around. We discussed the parallax measurements, and he showed me that even though the gate itself is far away, the whisps and other visual effects we see are actually generated just nearby our ship. The particles flowing from the gate cause probably visual some interference in the viewscreen. He also proudly demonstrated his "blink" manoeuver again, without giving technical details.

Journeying with Sarachem

Today, I flew alongside Goner Sarachem for a long while. I noticed how several capsuleers tried to woo him in the communications channel. Ladies of a very dubious allure logged in to the Goner Temple channel, but Goner Sarachem remained impervious to the temptations they offered.

He reminds of the desert fathers who went out alone into the desolate sands and sought God in the total solitude between dunes and sky. An ascetic life, a hermit's life. After much fasting and deprivation, demons started to appear to them. These demons took the form of tasty food or of wise men sowing doubts, or monsters inciting fear, or harlots tempting them with lewd thoughts and carnal feelings. The demons offered the fathers everything from simple water to wealth or sex if they would forsake the hermit's life. But the desert fathers took dead wood and made it into a club, and they took the thorny desert shrubs and wound it around the club and with it they beat back the demons of temptation.

Do I appear like a demon to Sarachem?

A gift from heaven

A most remarkable thing happened to me today: God smiled on my efforts and sent me help.

I was doing some more experiments close to the New Eden sun, laying down bookmarks, when my combat probes picked up another ship. An Astero frigate, a vessel type of the Sister's design, meant for exploration but capable of battle.

I immediately cloaked up, fearing White Sky thugs or similar miscreants. But to my surprise I was alone in local, and the only probes around were mine. I scanned down the Astero's location.

I mustered my courage, and warped to the ship at some distance, ready to re-warp away immediately should an attack ensue. But, the Astero just hung there, in space, no sign of life. I tried hailing it, but there was no response. The ship did not appear damaged, just powered down. My own ship's AI offered the option to board the ship, a menu item I had never seen before alongside orbit and approach... 

 

Maybe the Sisters were in danger. Had the ship lost power somehow? I boarded the vessel. It is a weird experience to change ship outside of a station. As my pod plugged in to the Astero's systems I could immediately see that there was no sign of life on the ship. Also, no sign of struggle or battle. For some unknown reason, the ship had just been abandoned in all haste and left in space in a fully equipped state.

It took a bit of time to get the engines up and running, and I had to offline several systems that I cannot use yet, such as the covert ops cloak. I brought the ship as well as my own ship back to the Farthest Shore, happy I was able to dock both up. I was also glad no malevolent capsuleer had destroyed the abandoned frigate before I found it.

The maintenance and repair crew at Farthest Shore tell me it will be fully operational soon. This is a far more advanced exploration vessel than what I am flying now, with expensive modules. In fact, it would be quite unaffordable to me at the moment: I would have to complete nearly 1500 flow cytometry analyses in project Discovery to pay for it.

 

I will wait for a couple of days in system to see if someone or some corporation turns up to look for their vessel. If no-one does, I will accept it as a gift from God, as encouragement and help for my quest. I will then name the vessel Ratakh Hubrau, the frigate from heaven.

Measuring the distance to Eve gate

Some capsuleers claim that Eve gate is anchored somewhere in the New Eden system, just outside the roughly 500 AU reach of combat scan probes in the maximally zoomed out view of the stellar map.

This claim is one that I can verify experimentally. Not by flying out there, but by using parallax measurements. Parallax is the fancy name for a familiar phenomenon: as you move around, objects nearby will shift their position relative to the faraway background. The larger the shift, the closer the object is to you.

Parallax measurements are a standard technique in astronomy. In fact, the distance unit of 1 parsec (3.26 light years) is defined through a parallax angle of 1 arcsecond (1/3600^th of a degree). 

These measurements fall in the broad category of triangulation. You do not actually need a fixed background of stars, any triangle will suffice. So, I pick the Promised Land gate, and the Farthest Shore station as two corners of my triangle. The side of the triangle connecting them is 11.8 AU long, a respectable base line. The third corner of the triangle is Eve gate. To find the distance to it, one needs to measure the angles that the two reachable corners make with Eve gate and use a bit of standard trigonometry.

The tactical overlay superposes a polar coordinate grid on the screen and makes it possible to measure the angles to an accuracy of about 0.1 degree (one should be careful, since the triangle does not lie in the equatorial plane, declination must be taken into account). The accuracy of 0.1 degree is a pretty low resolution for an astronomer, but it is useful to a capsuleer: it still allows to locate an object within 6760 AU of the star. This is a massive range, one that far surpasses what you can do with combat probes.

I first tested the technique on a known point (a bookmark I placed where I met the Goner), to confirm that it works. It passed the test.

Then I used it on the gate, and found a parallax angle of 0.06, so within the error bar of 0.1 degree. This means that what we see as the gate is not caused by a structure within 6760 AU of the star. Most likely, this places the gate outside of the New Eder star system. The claim by some, that the gate lies at 500-1000 AU, is thus refuted.