The Labyrinth

Using the key from the curator, we were able to access the labyrinth near the star in Aphi. Each site is shaped as an octagon, with spacetime anomalies at each point: 

The Talocan were master weavers of spacetime. The anomalies act as acceleration gates that warp vessels to other points near the sun in Aphi. However, they do not look like any acceleration gates that I have seen before. Rather, they resemble small wormhole portals. The effects of gravitational lensing can be seen at their outskirts, and a bright central energy nucleus lies at their center. Below is an image that shows a portal in closer view, along with the Stratios for scale.

There are no structures to keep these wormholes stable, like the structures you will find at jump gates or the usual acceleration gates. The portals seem perfectly stable by themselves, although only four out of eight will be traversable. I do not know whether that is because they did actually destabilize over the milennia, or whether they never were meant to work. Perhaps the octagon had a special meaning for the Talocan - as it does for the Takmahl - and the closed portals serve only to complete the octagon.

I find this an absolutely wondrous place, and I can only imagine how much more wondrous it must have seemed to the first Takmahl that discovered this site. It was clearly beyond their own technology - I think it is even beyond ours still. Perhaps the Takmahl realized this was a remnant from an ancient alien civilization, that we now know to be the Talocan. Perhaps they saw it as a sign of their Blood God, left for them near this blood red star. Perhaps they saw opportunity to learn new technology. Whatever it was, they stopped their decade long odyssey in the desert of space to settle here, in Aphi and the surrounding systems, even though the constellation is poor in temperate planets. 

Who knows what other Talocan ruins and artefacts they found? From all the Sani Sabik who fled Amarr after Queron's purges the Takmahl were the only ones to successfully create a thousand year interstellar empire. Some speculate the Talocan technology is the reason for that - although I prefer to believe the power of the stolen Avetat helped them.

We did not encounter any resistance in the labyrinth. It consists of ten sites, interconnected through the portals. For completeness, and reference, I add the map of the labyrinth to his log entry:

((ooc source attribution: This map comes from Eve University,
https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Labyrinth ))

There are still remaining questions I want to investigate about the labyrinth in the future, such as the spatial geometry of the labyrinth. Are the sites forming a pattern? Does that pattern reveal hidden chambers in space? Now that I am in possession of a key to the labyrinth, I will be able to visit it again at leisure.

The labyrinth leads to a central stage, where the mystery of this Talocan construction deepens... 

[to be continued]