Training

I was acutely reminded of how much I dislike physical exercises as I continue a training programme that Ishta suggested for me, to get me "in shape". 

The training centers on running. I have to admit that Ishta chose to train a skill that excellently matches my primary instincts when facing an enemy. 

However, rather than running in a straight line, which would make sense to evade an enemy, I am to run back and forth between two lines, going absolutely nowhere. It seems like a silly sport. It's even a sphereless sport - note that many sports involve throwing, bouncing, kicking, hitting or punching spheres - with some exceptions using ellipsoids. I have to reach the goalpost before hearing a beep, and then turn around to run back to the first one. The time between the beeps gradually decreases until, inevitably, the task becomes impossible. After a while, it has me spinning around like a rabid hamster that lost its running wheel.

I could clone into a younger version of myself, and cybernetically enhance my legs, but the trainer considers this cheating. Also donning an exoskeleton would be cheating. It would however be the rational thing to do for one that cannot run well, and yet has to go on a mission. Why all this pain and suffering when there is an easy technofix for this? 

In the end, I resigned myself to this training, though. I have come to see these exercises as a form of self-flagellation, or maybe spiritual exercises. I try to discern in it a theological allegory, one of perseverance in the face of inevitable failure.

Progress is slow

Still no success in getting more information from our "veterans". They seem to have different hours than I have (or, in the case of ms. Renalard, refuse to talk to me). 

Meanwhile, I also have difficulties to find anything about the Aegis Militia. The Order of the Black Cross seems to have made much more of a fuss about them, and their demise is more documented.

I will try to find our directrix, our hours of activity have been particularly out of sync. And perhaps also lord Lok'ri, as he has been around since I think the start of capsuleerdom.

Var's distress

 I saw ms. Varcutii Renalard at the bar, and that looked like a happy coincidence as she is a veteran capsuleer and might know something about the Aegis Militia and the Dark Sephrim. 

However, she seemed quite distressed and disheveled. Perhaps even suffering from substance abuse... She refused to answer my inqueries about her distress and pushed me away.

Why is it that veteran capsuleers are so distressed? Those that witnessed the birth of capsuleering and the early years, the last ones of Heideran VII? Are they distraught at what we have become? Far from immortality, many end their own lives, as I've found looking into these "old" corporations. 

We do have the prospect of immortality, but few seem to be able to bear that burder longer than a decade...

Obituary

I received some really sad news. 

About a year ago, I found three stowaway exotic dancers in my hangar, and I brought them back to the federation. They were nice girls and I was glad to help them.

Today, I stumbled across an obituary for Anna Angel, one of them. She died back in January, apparently. And she died suddenly, unexpectedly, of an overdose of frentix. That's all I could learn about this, I didn't find any news of the other two girls. I have no idea how I'd contact them now.

I'm quite shaken by this news. She was so young, perhaps early twenties? Maybe I could have done more for her, tried to keep up with what was happening to her? I didn't stay in touch after I had them dropped off in Luminaire. I made a courier contract for that. It seems so impersonal now, I was concerned about my reputation. I didn't think about them afterwards, I just supposed all would be okay. I forgot about it afterwards.

I should have known better, they crept on board the Indigatrix during a Serpentis and Angel cartel party week, when I raided one of their data centers. Serpentis and Cartel, that should have told me they being taken advantage of. I failed to see that.

I'll light a candle for her at the chapel and pray for her soul.

Too little, too late.

Heresy

The downfall of the Order of the Black Cross started when they declared war on Aegis Militia, the other group that was supporting the Tetrimon. It appears they allied themselves with Blood Raiders and other dubious characters.

One of their 'friends' was a certain Arderich, a sedevacantist before they become known by that name. He declared the following tenets of his belief:

"1) Pax Amarria must burn and
2) the Udorian House Tash-Murkon must retreat.
3) I realize this statements are clearly against the decisions of Heideran. Neiher Heideran nor Doriam were Gods chosen ones is a logical conclusion of this two first statements. On a side note: again I am pleased to have heard a similar statement form Grand Master Horm.

I think this pretty much sums up the whole chaos and I am not at all interested to get between the lines of this nonsense that is happeneing between multiracial corporations/alliances with wicked and strange relationships all over."

This was a decade ago, but reeks of Sedevacantism. It seems this heresy was simmering underneath long before Nauplius became its self-proclaimed leader. This leads me to believe it will not go away once Nauplius goes away...

Members of the Order of the Black Cross

From what I can find in the trade registry, the Order of the Black Cross, and its executor corporation Dark Seraph indeed seem defunct. 

An alarming number of capsuleers that were registered with them have been biomassed and/or have been stricken from the Record. It looks like there was a final purge somewhere around or just before YC112, not just a disbanding. These folks didn't retire, they were eliminated. 

There's no more trace of lord Jeserat Verisum, or Revan Neferis (who perhaps became his wife and a lady of the fallen House).

A few members of the Order got out, and remained active. There's only one of the maybe more prominent members that managed to escape: ms. Verjigorm. She's a convicted heretic and now a pirate and has shown signs of activity all the way up to YC 119. 

To my surprise, I found that a former member of the Order of the Black Cross has joined SFRIM, staying there up to June last year. Mr. Kazuma Ry. I pulled up his interview. Too bad that back then no-one asked about prior associations with known heretics... Nothing special was noted in the interview, it would take a skilled exegete the transcript may reveal an undertone of the Order's heretical beliefs painted over with the veneer of tolerance.

The Order of the Black Cross

I'm glad I am away from Teakh Tak-Teakh, and the dark world of Ibani VI. I didn't get to hear the ice sing, but I don't want to stay for that natural phenomenon. I did buy a recording of the singing ice from a souvenir shop in the Khanid Transport Storage station at Ibani VI, and a fridge magnet showing the glow beneath the glacial surface.

It's not that the Tetrimon refused to help, it's just that everyone remained quite distant. As if I am suspect, or impure. They won't offer any advice. They only tell me what I ask about. They don't sabotage me, not at all, but they simply have no interest in seeing me succeed.

To investigate House Verisum I don't need their archives any more. I will do just fine back in Nasreri consulting the Amarr Trade Registry in our station. I've already remotely logged in to the library's databases and found a next clue: House Verisum was apparently deeply involved in a secretive organisation, the Order of the Black Cross. 

Allegedly, this Order no longer exists, but of course, if it is a secret organisation, then it would make sense for them to let the rest of the world believe they no longer exist. 

The thing is, even secret organisations need to buy stuff and leave a paper trail in the vast bureaucracy of the Amarr Trade Registry. It just needs to be dug  up.

Fallen allies

My best chance to get more information on this "Temple of God's Assuring Whisper" is to find the people that were involved in retrieving artefacts from it before. 

Grand Master Horm led the last mission to retrieve the relics, but he is no longer with us. He was assisted by by members of the Aegis Militia and House Verisum, so these are the people I need to talk to. 

The Aegis Militia was an Amarrian loyalist faction, but I have no idea what became of them. Have they been absorbed by PIE? That would be an ideal outcome, maybe some of their old members are still in PIE and now that they are in our own alliance it will be easy to talk to them.

House Verisum was more deeply involved, and I think they would know more. They were staunch supporters and allies of the Order. However, they fell from grace. Grand Master Horm denounced the Verisum Family, accusing them of severe crimes against the Empire and the Order. According to the recorded indictment the accusations included threatening pilots of the Order, flying alongside known enemies of the Empire, feuding with Imperial loyalist forces, and releasing private communications into the public domain. Even though the Grand Master offered redemption, House Verisum refused, with one exception: Revan Neferis decided to seek a pardon from the Order. 

She did not get her pardon.

But to me, this implies Revan Neferis stills cares about her soul, and holds on to the faith. She might be the key to this mystery - and to the location of the temple where Tetrimon IV hid the relics. Who is she? The Order might never tell me what I want to know, but these fallen allies just might.

I look forward to leaving this depressing world and getting back to Nasreri.

The temple of God's Assuring Whisper

Slowly, in this dark and forlorn archive, I am making a bit of headway in the search for mentions of the relics hidden by Grand Master Tetrimon IV.

I'm finding scattered references revealing that the stolen relics of the Apostles were brought to safety in a region all to familiar to me: the constellations close to Eve Gate in Genesis. There are many mentions of a "Temple of  God’s Assuring Whisper". These whispers can only be heard close to the Mouth of God, which is what we call Eve Gate in the Amarrian language. I've even found some references that locate the temple in the Access system. 

This would indeed be a convenient hiding place, far away from the Throne worlds, at the edge of what was then the explored part of the cluster.

The archivists and other monks here tell me this temple was indeed an important place long ago, but it was destroyed during the civil wars following the Moral Reforms, and information on its location is lost.

However, back in YC108 the Order did retrieve some relics that were stolen from the temple by Blood Raiders. The thieves and the relics were still in the Genesis region, and this is not the Blooders' favorite place. If they were stolen long ago, they would have been moved. So I think the Blooders got their hands on the relics around YC108 and not before. This leads me to believe that maybe the temple or its ruins remain to this very day a hiding place for many relics stowed away by Tetrimon IV. 

And I need to find it.

Contradictions

These archives are vast. And contradictory. 

On the one hand, a lot of the material of the Tetrimon Scrolls advocates for the concept of "equality". This is the (disturbingly Gallentean) idea that all people are the same and should be treated the same. Nowhere is this more clear than in the teachings of Tetrimon IV, who was grand master of the order during the Moral Reforms. He emphasizes the apocryphal exhortation "For you are all my creation, and are all equal in my kingdom". 

Tetrimon IV opposed emperor Heideran V and his Moral Reforms, that would see power centralized in the hands of the Emperor and the Heir houses. The drive for equality is indeed antagonistic to the idea of increased power for the Heirs and the Emperor. It would even now be considered a heresy now, I am convinced of it. Holders and slaves are not equal. This inequality does not mean that holders are inherently superior, just that the duties and expectations are different. And this is as it should be, as it always was.

Tetrimon IV hid the records of the Apostles, and many can be found now in these archives. They show a council that slowly loses its grip on power and no longer is able to keep the Heirs and the Emperor in check. The grand master also hid the relics of the apostles, but they do not appear to be here.

On the other hand, today's Order is now all about orthodoxy and enforcing the rule of the Holders over their slaves. I find that contradictory to their historically held beliefs. It is clear from these records they even acted against Doriam and his release of slaves, and they were eagerly participating in Sarum's and Ardishapur's wars against rebellious slaves. This enforcer role must be what earned them the support of these Houses.

I wonder where the current grand master stands, Khemon Dulsur an-Tetrimon is a direct descendant of Tetrimon IV, and hence of Saint Tetrimon. Perhaps he returns to this belief in equality? Indeed, he has supported Jamyl in her reforms, something that was unthinkable before.

The pit

Following a tradition that dates back into the dark ages, an abbey's muniment room - where the documents are kept - is located close to the calefactory, where the power generators are. This probably goes back to a pre-industrial era when the calefactory was the only heated place in monasteries, and documents needed to be kept close to that room so they would not get damp and moldy.

                                                               (OOC image credit: Wojtec Fus)

The historical archives of the Order are also located near a site where the power generators are. Mostly fission reactors, creating enough excess heat to melt some of the ice on top of the site. The site itself is mostly undergound, to protect it from orbital attacks. It looks like a chasm, an immense hole in the ground, and that is why people refer to it as "the pit." A dark place in a dark world.

It appears to me that it also houses a kind of command center and fleet hangars. The security is tight, and I am constantly tracked. I'm only allowed in some restricted area. But I could finally start working - I've installed myself in the reading room and I have found a helpful assistant archivist. Helpful, but like everyone else here, not very chatty.

Teakh Tak-Teakh

The Tetrimon knight met up with me in the hangar of the Khanid Storage station orbiting Ibani VI's fifteenth moon, while I was reviewing the Indigatrix's systems and preparing for another round of probing in the Ibani system. A stern fellow, taciturn. He introduced himself as Paladin-Knight Kaertush Eradahr. He took me to a shuttle, capable of atmospheric flight.

We went down to the planet, to fortress Teakh Tak-Teakh. You could feel it, as the craft descended. Ibani VI is a large world, with a high gravity, pulling you down and making every movement tiresome. 

Everything gets more weight, down here.

The fortress is a squat, hunkered down, sprawling installation with large guns to take down orbital bombers and shields to protect it from bombardment. It's built into one of the few rocky outcroppings in the ice. There are many hangars, it's clear that there is a fleet here and a full commandery of several cohorts of Tetrimon forces.

After some formalities I have been housed in a cell, with a small window to the outside. I took the above picture of the view from my cell of the panorama outside, on  what is known here as a bright sunny day. 

I am to wait here, and will be brought to the archives and library tomorrow. They're in a different facility, known as the Pit, which serves mainly as power station for the fortress, housing the old-fashioned fission reactors that power up the entire place. I ventured out of my cell a bit, going to the nearest refectory in the hope of chatting with other monks. But I did not get any normal conversation - everyone here seems quiet, tensely focused on work, thinking only of duty, and wary of strangers.

(OOC: image taken from scrolller.com / antarctica - image author unknown)

Singing ice

Ibani VI is a large ice planet. At a distance of 31 AU, Ibani's sun is so weak that even high noon looks like dusk, and stars remain visible on the celestial dome throughout the day. The sun is not able to warm anything on this world, and it is covered by an ice layer many kilometers thick.

Ibani VI has no less than 22 moons. Some of these moons are quite massive, the size of small planets. The large amount of moons means that there are no tides, the moons usually pull all in different directions, averaging out whatever tidal effect there would be. But from time to time there are lunar alignments. Especially if several of the larger moons align, this does cause a powerful transient tidal force on Ibani VI.

There's no free flowing water, Ibani VI is covered in ice. But the immense tidal forces during an alignment event create a strong tension in the ice, ultimately making it crack. As the cracks and fissures move at high speeds through the ice mass, they create strong vibrations resulting in otherworldly sounds, heard over hundreds of kilometers. The ice sings. The colder, the louder the eerie sounds. If a crack occurs close to you, even if it is hundreds of meters below the surface, the force of the vibrations can knock you down. During a tidal event, the proliferating cracks that slowly move around the planet create a powerful and enchanting symphony unlike anything you ever heard.

This is often accompanied by weak, almost auroral light - but rather than an aurora above, the sheets of light are below the ice. This blueish glow under the ice travels at great speed, spreading underfoot from horizon to horizon in a matter of seconds, racing along like the cracks. It's not yet fully understood what causes these curtains of diffuse subsurface light, although often it is attributed to piezo-electric effects in the ice. This glow adds to the magic of the phenomenon.

The singing ice of Ibani VI draws tourists, even from Amarr itself. It's apparently the only thing for which people bother to visit this system. Well, there's the Order of St. Tetrimon's fortress, but that one is not very popular.

Ibani

Ibani. A cold, feeble star. It looks orange, even though it's classified as a main sequence brown dwarf. It's a bit too large for a dwarf but this aberration of a star is still close enough to the main sequence. It's a dark place, and whatever meager light comes from that star has to be enhanced by the ship's imaging systems.

I came early for the meeting. A paladin knight of the order would escort me. Not a cleric: I must be reminded that this is a militant Order.

I passed my waiting time by launching combat scanner probes and having a look at the system. There were a few miners from Darwinism who scurried away as soon as they saw the probes on d-scan. Maybe they picked up my Anathema as well, before it cloaked up, and thought I would cyno in a battle group. I tried to tell them on local that I present no danger, but they were already gone before I could type up a full sentence.

The miners were working the belts, but there are no Athanors in this system, no one is interested in the ore-poor moons. There's some planetary industry, at least if one goes by the customs systems. 

I scanned the ecliptic plane out to about 300 AU, to see if the order is hiding some stations in deepspace pockets. They did this in Thebeka: they built a fortress monastery more than hundred AU away from anything. No-one bothered to scan that far out so their station went undetected, until they chose to reveal it. In this system, I couldn't find anything.

En route

Yesterday, I had a nice chat with mr. Statesman about the search for his father. He's been given some interesting artefacts as "heritage" when his mother passed away, providing hints to the identity of his father. He asked me to help him analyse them - a long while back, in Mehatoor. He then left for a long time - and only recently did he show up again, at SFRIM's new offices in Nasreri. I was glad I could finally get back to him with the results of my investigation, and suggestions on how to proceed next. I almost feel like a private detective.

Anyway, further detective work on this will have to wait a bit, today I left for Ibani - it is rather far away. The kind of place that always seems to be at least 40 jumps from any reasonable place you may find yourself. It is still part of the civilized world, but barely, with a 0.1 security status. The local capsuleers seem to have banded into an alliance called "Darwinism", and unfortunately, they appear to be set red to us, unfriendlies.

I haven't been given permission to land anywhere near the fortress complex of the Order of St. Tetrimon, on Ibani VI. In stead, I have been asked to dock up in the Khanid Storage station orbiting the 15th moon of that planet.

Ascension since Jamyl's reign

The return to power of the Order of St. Tetrimon was a policy of Empress Jamyl I. It came as a shock, totally unexpected, just like Jamyl's reappearance in Mekhios to save us from the Elder fleet. 

One would have thought that Jamyl's return would have been met with scepticism and critique from such an conservative sect. In stead, they issued a simple statement, in support of Jamyl: “The Order of St. Tetrimon welcomes Her Royal Highness Jamyl Sarum home. God’s children rejoice as His light returns home, and the light shall bring death and despair on His enemies.”

Soon after, Jamyl invited the Khanid heir back to the privy counsel, and overturned the old suppression edict, allowing the Order to operate in Amarr space. When Empress Jamyl passed away, it was the Order who was responsible to oversee the succession trials. Empress Catiz has maintained their privileges.

In the last couple of years, their influence has grown even stronger, supported by both house Ardishapur and house Sarum. The Order became more militant, and was given key roles to purge the Empire from heresy, alongside the ministry of internal order. Ardishapur and Sarum were instrumental in giving the Order an  Empire-wide mandate to seek out heresy and rebellion, first among slave populations, and then in general.

House Ardishapur allowed them to start a new chapter in the Ammatar mandate, and to build fortress-monasteries on the planet of Halturzhan in Jarizza, as well as in the Thebeka system, where the order helped defeat a slave rebellion. Similarly, House Sarum gave them titles to a fortess on Dihra VI, and permission to start a new chapter in their demesne, and in return they have been involved in House Sarum's battles in Floseswin.

The Empire has been purging itself from heresy after the treacherous Equilibrium of Mankind attacks, and this latest development has seen the Order become more powerful than ever.

Doriam's period of grace

The Tetrimon cult in exile in Khanid space longed to be recognized by the Empire and lobbied hard and long for this. Heideran never allowed it. However, under his successor, Doriam II, they were finally given a chance to get re-instated. In YC106 the Theology Council accepted a petition to investigate their doctrine and decide if it is in line with the imperial rite. Unfortunately Doriam would not live to see the result of that investigation.

The cult's teachings are based on a slightly different version of the scriptures. Some parts are not included, while others are added. There are apocryphal texts that are not in the canonical version of the scriptures, and these parts are known as the "Tetrimon Scrolls". These include some very old books that were retained by the Tetrimon when the Order had been instructed to purify Scriptures from the Mad Emperor's heresies. These old parts date from at least two millennia ago, when the Order was still in the good graces of the Empire, before the Moral Reforms.

For the duration of the Theology Council's investigation of the scrolls, the Suppression Edict was revoked, suspending the exile of the Order. Still, it was no walk in the park to bring their sciptures to Amarr, in fact the Order's grand master at the time, Elata Ardo, died protecting these shipments during their transfer to the Theology Council. 

The Theology Council then debated and studied these texts carefully for nearly two years, and at first, things were looking good. A first report in January YC108 concluded that several books in the Tetrimon scriptures are authentic.

Things took a turn for the worse not long after that. It appeared that the Order had been spying on the Theology Council. There were even some claims that they tried to influence members of the Council. Their spying attempts were revealed, resulting in a strong condemnation from the Empire. In the end, the Theology Council described the scrolls as "inconclusive", and while this does not reject their authenticity, it does not accept the Order back into the fold either.

In October YC108, chancellor Karsoth had ordered the Imperial Navy to attack an installation from the Order in the Bleak Lands, claimed to be the center of their eavesdropping effort. The Order claimed that it used this station to mop up the remnants of the Blood Raiders that were still in the Bleak Lands following Doriam's successful campaign against the Raiders. The installation was destroyed. One month later, the Privy Council reconfirmed the Suppression Edict and the exile of the Order. 

After two hopeful years, things were back to square one for the Tetrimon.