Genesis Crusade

I interrupted my stay at Mezagorm before I could finish homing in on the location of the Tetrimon garrison abandoned thousand years ago. That feels like a signature scan being interrupted just before your probes find where that relic site exactly is at the highest resolution. But here, the site will not go away, and I can continue the search where I left it, once I return.

I took a shuttle - of course paying a hefty fee to Galactic Tours - and I will have to be back before the cruise leaves in about ten days time. And no refunds.

What prompted my sudden return to our headquarters is the declaration of the 'Genesis Crusade' that will be waged by our alliance, Khimi Harar, on the pirates and heretics in the Genesis region. The New Eden system with EVE Gate lies in that region, and it is one of my favorite places in all of the cluster. I started my explorations there, and it is where I first got in contact with the Societas, as they offered free docking at Farthest Shore. 

So, I am quite thrilled about this crusade. Just recently, I had complained about the presence of pirate capsuleer headquarters in New Eden. Now, it seems that my complaints reached the ears of the Almightly. Or at least our directors' ears. 

That is why I decided to go back shortly to Mehatoor. I wanted to hold a prayer service for the success of the crusade. As our crusaders are issued armor plates to protect their ships, it is only fair they are also given armor to protect their souls. And I used the occasion to also give a sermon to encourage all to participate.

In addition, I passed by the New Eden constellation and updated and completed the intelligence report on the structures that are present there. The region is still undergoing rapid changes - the White Sky hoodlums seem to be in disarray. God has stricken them, and it is now up to us to complete the task and become his Avenging Angels.

After I quickly pick up some furrier treats for Mr. Maulus, I will return to the cruise (paying another hefty fee to Galactic Tours, to bring me back). 

Mezagorm base camp

The Princess of the High Seas landed near a side-wall of the Grand Hall. This is not the first time that Galactic Tours has brought tourists to Mezagorm, they clearly have their routine. They have built a modern disembarkment platform, and a small domed colony building - all of it dwarfed by the Grand Hall. No space suits needed, you can comfortably go from the yacht to the building via an enclosed, movable connector tube. In the building there is an exhibit, a little restaurant, a panoramic view hall, and restrooms. It also serves as a base camp for tours inside Mezagorm, none of which stray very far from the building though.

I will not participate to the tours, to the great surprise of the crew. And I had them unload some cargo: I brought a planetary exploration vehicle, in which the bulky scanners could be mounted. It is a six-wheel vehicle with limited flight capability. With all this equipment crammed in, it is basically a one-person craft, going at a rather slow pace. It takes an hour to cover sixty kilometers on flat terrain, and it has a range of a thousand kilometers over ground - flight thrusters are to be used sparingly, and strongly reduce that range.

I have already found way more signatures than I thought there would be. Apparently, the Tetrimon were not sticking to a single encampment here, during the centuries that they guarded the abandoned city. 

There is a bit of organic and inorganic stuff from their time in nearly all directions. So, I will just go in the direction where the signals read the strongest, and point to the oldest material. For this I have to pass a part of the Grand Hall, along what a mathematician like dr. Setun might call a chord of the circle. This will cost me about three hours to traverse, before I reach the spot at the Grand Hall's side-wall where I will re-scan for the second leg of travel.

The grand hall

The yacht descended into the open dome of Mezagorm, "the vision of God" - or more accurately the vision of the mad emperor who thought he was God. As it went deeper into the structure, it revealed a stunning view: the center of Mezagorm consists of a vast emptiness, a hall of such mind-boggling proportions that its bottom surface can easily encompass an large modern metropolis. 

Mezagorm is built in epicircles upon smaller epicircles, dancing around, encircling, and spiraling out of this central grand hall. There is a fractal flavor to the entire architecture - the structures around the circular grand hall are also circular, containing and being bordered by other circular structures and habitats. The circle is a holy symbol in Amarr, depicting universal harmony with God and perfection; circles are everywhere here.

I am impressed by the immensity of this grand hall. I tried to take a picture (above) but it cannot really give a sense of scale. It is larger than any hangar I have ever seen - the light gray layered structure you see as a central band at the back is several kilometers in height, the height of a mountain. All of the (at that time already vast) population of Amarr could gather there to worship the mad emperor at its centre, that is the true meaning of this heretical 'vision of God'. The floor plan is divided in twelve sections, like a clock face, for the twelve major houses in the Empire that the mad emperor wanted to elevate to his privy council, and to which all other houses would be subservient.

This is going to take some time to scan down, and it will put the sensitivity of the scanners to the test if I am ever to home in on the quarters of the Tetrimon garrison of thousand years ago...

The plan: follow the radio-isotope fingerprints

We have at last arrived in Shastal. Today there are no excursions yet. Probably the local pirates have to be bribed properly to leave us alone. Meanwhile, we can take in the views of Mezagorm from space. 

I am preparing the measuring equipment that I brought along; these are very sensitive detectors for remote radio-isotopic fingerprinting. 

All the stuff around us contains trace amounts of various radioactive isotopes. The radiation from their decay (or decay chain) can be used to identify these isotopes, and for gamma radiation and neutrinos this can be done at a distance by modern equipment. 

Now, a signal from a single radio-isotope does not tell you much, but you learn much more if you look at the ratios of their signals. Take for example lead; it is always a mixture of a decent number of different isotopes. The precise isotope composition of any piece of lead is determined by the time and place where the lead was made - so it gives you a fingerprint to locate its planet and time of origin, and the more isotopes you include the more accurate you can pinpoint its origin, down to the very mine where the ore comes from, as long as this mine is listed in a sample database. 

Even with remote detection, advanced scanners can perfectly distinguish between materials containing heavy metals from the mad Emperor's era, and similar materials created in the Empire a thousand years later, when the Order of St. Tetrimon was perhaps still using some hideout in this station. They are sure to have left some stuff behind - even if it's just matter somewhere in a trash compactor on station. 

So, the plan is to use the scanning equipment to guide me to the spots in the station - off the touristic track - that have been used by the Tetrimon, perhaps as a relic vault.

A bit of mathematics

Dr. Setun joined us again at one of lady Adelath's tea and cookie confession sessions. Dr. Setun works as a sedative for the old lady, she confessed as much on an earlier occasion. And indeed, she nodded off while he started explaining why Triglavian base-3 computation is superior. Even mister Maulus took a nap, on her lap.

I listened. To me, there is something suspicious about his idolization of the Triglavian system. Perhaps, as a codebreaker during the war, he has been exposed too much to their corrupting influence.

Anyway, here is his argument. Remember that our decimals are base-10 numbers, while our computer bits are base-2 numbers. Some claim we just picked the number ten because that is how many fingers we have, so it is easy for finger-counting math. The first computer builders picked binary because in essence they worked with switches that can be on or off, just two values.

In general, you need more digits to represent an arbitrary number, if you use a smaller base. The number 82 has two digits in decimal, but in binary it is 1010010 : that is seven digits long. In a general base B, the amount of digits required to represent a number N is given by the base-B logarithm of that number, log_B(N). Or, to be precise, the first integer larger than that value.

So, it seems that a larger base, with its fewer digits, is more efficient at storing and manipulate numbers. However, there is also a cost: any digit can take on B values. There are more different symbols in our decimal system than the 0 and 1 of the binary system. So, the overal cost is actually B log_B(N). Now, if you try out several values for B, you will indeed conclude that B=3 gives the lowest cost. Note that, if you do not restrict yourself to integers, the function B log_B(N) becomes minimal when B equals St. Euxon's Holy Constant e=2.71828... for which 3 is the closest integer.

I tried to refute his argument, by claiming that most operations involve two-digit gates, for example addition or multiplication of two numbers. These kind of gates are characterized by B2 entries. So, for computation, B2log_B(N) is the function to minimize. For that case, actualy B=7 is the best number system. 

Hopefully we are not invaded by the Heptavians next.

Mister Maulus

The lady Adelath has been stalking me, requesting I visit her for confessions at least twice a day. Since she confesses more rapidly than she can sin, these sessions become tea-and-cookie parties during which she tells me about her life while I try to shift around on my chair to avoid her pet furrier biting my legs. 

She calls her furrier "mister Maulus", a name given to it by her late husband. She claims that it got this name because as a pup, it would always run away with the holoscreen remote and hide it out of her reach. She considers that electronic warfare. I would like to propose another explanation, related to the verb "to maul" and rabid furriers, but I restrain from making such comments seeing how fond lady Adelath is of her pet.

Lady Adelath has taken almost permanent residence on this cruise ship and knows all the gossip about the staff and the captain. She claims that the captain lost his crew and civilians that he had orders to evacuate, during the Triglavian war. He made a wrong decision, and is now consumed by guilt. Being not of the faith, he cannot be helped by the rite confession...

Table guests

I avoid the main restaurant. It is buffet style, and this seems to bring out the worst in tourists on the cruise. They feel they have to eat as much as they can, it is as if they want to digest at least the ticket prize worth of food. The display of gluttony is too much to take.

My capsuleer status saved me. I got an invitation to have dinner at the captain's table, which is in a fancy restaurant on one of the observation decks. I met some interesting people there. 

The captain is a Caldari Navy veteran by the name of Olkaanen. He appears neurotic - probably that is why he is no longer with the navy but flying a tourist boat. Something happened during the Triglavian war that jarred him, but it is not clear what. 

There was another guest with a Triglavian link: a Gallente mathematician, dr. Michel Setun. He specializes in ternary computing - in which numbers are not base-2 but base-3. So data is not just ones and zeros but also twos. Dr. Setun claims it is superior. He was assigned to a code-cracking team during the Triglavian war.

The third table guest was another Amarrian, and elderly lady, Dame Agatha Adelath. She has no remaining family (or perhaps she cut ties with them), and she spends her retirement on such cruises in order not to be alone. She was quite excited that an Amarr friar was around, she has been trying hard to accentally run into me ever since the dinner.

The Princess of the High Seas

Being used to Amarr ship designs, I find the Victorieux Luxury yacht to be a particularly ugly hull. Clearly, it is not built for those on the outside, looking at it - rather, it is built for those inside, looking out.

The Princess of the High Seas (oh so inaccurately named as it would sink immediately when it would try to land on any planetside body of water) boasts five observation decks - one with a large buffet restaurant. It also has four gardens, a beach hangar with cocktail bars, six holoreel theaters, a host of restaurants all themed differently, two shopping "avenues", and a planetarium. I consider the latter to be an insult to the universe; why  display the stars as small light spots in a dark room when you can just look outside? It is a bit like building a pool at the seashore; also that is an insult, but to the sea.

You may have guessed from the log entry thus far that I am a bit grumpy.

The cause of my grumpiness is that I am constantly disturbed while I am patiently waiting in my quarters till this cruise arrives at Mezagorm. Several times a day, staff from the entertainment crew comes to ask me if I do not want to join in some games or swimming or sports or whatever other nonsense they invent.

All aboard

I boarded the cruise, and brought along several crates of equipment. The staff did not seem to surprised, I think they are used to some of their passengers bringing a lot of luggage. Opera divas, or moviestars, or New Caldari CEO housewives on a shopping planettrip, yes, but and old friar? Well, they did not bat an eye.

Mr. Firth did not join me. He must suspect that this is not a holiday - I never indulge in such frivolities. But ever since my short stint in the war zone, we have an Understanding. When I am out exploring in the Indigatrix, he joins. All other sorts of wanderings, I can do unsupervised. 

I have to say that he (and I think his superiors at the MIO) must be particularly happy. I handed in some potentially very useful weapons - the biodroid. And I did a security survey of the Eve constellation. All very laudable, from my political officer's point of view.

What I am about to explore next, might not be...

Tickets in the mail

I received a letter, including my ticket for the space cruise that I booked to Mezagorm. The letter listed a few possible departure dates from which I can choose. As soon as I validate the ticket with the date of my choice, the booking is confirmed. I took the earliest possible date and made arrangements with mr. Jensen for the library.

I am not looking forward to mingling with foreign tourists in the close quarters of a cruise yacht. I asked for the simplest, barest cabin. It still comes with a jacuzzi and a massage bed. I do not need that, I am used to a monk's cell! All these luxuries tend to detract one from one's duty. But this is the only way to be granted access to the ruins of Mezagorm, so I will endure the ordeal and the complimentary caviar and champagne breakfast.

Foundation day YC126

Yesterday we celebrated Foundation day. It marks the building of the grand basilica of St. Gheinok, which itself was constructed over the very first church, built by prophet Gheinok himself. 

We know accurately when the grand basilica was constructed. However, the date of the founding of the original church on that site is only known approximately. No wonder: it is a staggering fifteen thousand years old! An unimaginably vast timespan separates us from that time, the time of Gheinok. Thoughout all this time, the faith has been passed on, protected from its enemies, spread to the stars. Now it is in our hands, and it is our turn to protect and pass on this most precious gift.

I returned to Amarr for this year's Foundation day celebrations. I again did some history tours for capsuleers, this has become somewhat of a tradition now for me. It allows me to combine my yearly pilgrimage to holy sites such as Mekhios graveyard and Empress Jamyl's titan with the desire to spread the faith by bringing others along.

I was happy to see that there is now also a tour of low-sec sites, Maria took care of that - she is after all experienced in navigating somewhat more lawless space. 

My only disappointment this year was that there was no specific address from the court to capsuleers. It is always rousing to hear the Empress speak to our kind specifically. Perhaps next year.

Metenox

A new age of colonization, that is what they call it at Upwell. 

This new age seems to be happening right here in the Eve constellation. Gone are the old ways: the space stations where civilian and capsuleer ships could dock, where people could meet and trade and socialize, they have all but disappeared. They have been replaced by this monstrosity:

The Metenox Moon Drill. There are a dozen of these new structures that popped up all over the Eve constellation since my last visit, with probably more to come. The few old Athanor stations have all but disappeared. 

These moon drills are fully automated, and populated by a clone work force. But, contrary to the cheerful advertisement, these things do not bring any real colonists. The clones are being shipped around like machine parts, they have no permission to wander off and build a life on one of the planets in the system.

I have not seen any mining fleets any more. The automation and remote control of the Metenox drill brings with it corporate laziness. In fact, I have not seen many capsuleers around in space any more in these far flung worlds at the edge of the Empire. There was a State scientific exploration fleet visiting Eve gate (and, I suspect, checking up on Sedition's activities), but there was nobody of the corporations in control of the moon drills.

Hopefully they will not automate exploration next...