A Saint for the Hole

I have found a suitable Saint for Seclusion. I figured it ought to be a hermit, someone who enjoyed seclusion. This might resonate also with the ones calling our wormhole colony home.

Saint Vasrayi the Anchorite lived with his parents in a garrison town in Southern Ves-Udor during the reclaiming of Athra. Fortunes turned against Amarr and the town was overrun by a pagan army. His parents were killed, and Vasrayi fled into the great interior desert, taking with him only a book of prayers. He found a cave, at the desert's edge, in the foothills of the ancient mountain range of Satach's Spite. He lived alone there from the age of ten to the age of one hundred and thirteen years old. 

In the cave, there was a clear spring, and near his hermitage there was also a palm tree. Its leaves provided him clothing, and its fruit provided him with the only source of food until his forty-second birthday. Then, a golden eagle started bringing him half a loaf of bread daily. 

From time to time, people made the difficult trek through the desert to visit the Saint, and asked him for advice or answers to existential questions. The first visitor to reach his cave and find out about Saint Vasrayi was a cleric who asked him what he learned from being all this time alone in the desert. Saint Vasrayi answered: "No matter how far in the desert you think you are, there is always someone who finds you". This is typical for the sayings of this Saint: they are at the same time seemingly trivial remarks about what is literally happening, and a deep allegorical wisdom. I think this one can also be applied as a warning to people who think they are safely cloaked in Anoikis...

The particular item of worship that I found in the rent-a-relic catalogue is a sleeve of the palm leaf robe of Saint Vasrayi. I have filed the application (in triplicate) at the Bureau of Outer Rim Consecrations. I'm also ordering a beautiful reliquary to put it on display in Pilrim's Rest chapel.

Rent-a-Relic

I've been thinking about a good relic for the chapel in Pilgrim's Rest in Seclusion. Relics always raise the prestige of a sacred building and they draw in new worshippers. 

In order to promote the construction of new churches beyond the frontiers of the Empire, the Theology Council's Bureau of Outer Rim Consecrations has a rent-a-relic programme. For a small monthly fee, you can host a holy relic in your chapel. They have a catalog where you can choose among the saints and their body parts or attributes. Of course, there is just a limited offer, but for example there are quite some Tetrimon fingers.

Now, a relic may seem morbid to those not of the faith, and sometimes they even think it is a magical object used to cast spells. Nothing is farther from the truth. A relic serves as a strong memento of the life of a Saint. In its presence, the faithful reflect on how the Saint has lived in service of God and Empire. The faithful find courage the emulate the example that the Saint has set.

So, the choice of Saint is important. The Saint's life and struggles have to be relatable to the faithful in Seclusion. However, the discovery of Anoikis is so new that I do not know off-hand of any Saint of the Hole... This requires a bit more research.

Fire in the hole

From time to time I go to Pilgrim's Rest, in our outpost in wormhole space. The station boasts a very pleasant park with walkways, under a dome with a view on the wormhole system that we call Seclusion. Scattered around the park there are chapels and temples of many denominations, not only our own Amarr faith. I suppose that is because wormhole space is a refuge for lost souls and wanderers from just about every corner of the cluster, and we want to welcome them, and offer them a place to rest and pray or meditate.

Of course I want our Amarrian chapel to be the nicest and most attractive of them all. So, from time to time I make a supply run, with new copies of the Pax Amarria, and freshly blessed candles and holy water. Perhaps more than these supplies, it is my unannounced inspection visit that keeps the chapel at its best. The chapel personnel knows it can not slack.

They might be tempted into slothfulness because the chapel remains severely underused. It is meant for capsuleers, as the station's baseline personnel have their own church. When I went to Seclusion before, the place was very quiet. Apart from the occasional curious visiting pilot, only a handful of capsuleers called Seclusion home. And these were a ragtag gang of reclusive hermits each pretty much doing their own thing. Many of them have some sort of criminal record which keeps them from going back to known space.

"Seclusion" lived up to its name.

So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when I during my latest visit I found our wormhole dominion bustling with fresh capsuleer activity. Standing fleets for defense were obliterating Sleeper hotspots and chasing out unwelcome trespassers. No more lone ninja-mining: now a mining fleet was crunching asteroids in an orderly manner under the oversight of a mining foreman. Wormhole connections were being either guarded by watchmen or "rolled out" - a process of controlled collapse of an unwanted wormhole. New colonial towns are appearing on the planets, mostly serving factories and mines extracting the bountiful resources of the wormhole planets. There is a busy coming and going of freight vessels to bring Seclusion's exotic products back to Amarr.

The whole system is filled with the air of industriousness and the zeal of colonists at a new and uncharted frontier. 

This recent expansion into the wormhole frontier is the work of the Comitia Centuriata, a new chapterhouse of the Societas, organised by Publius Cornelius Felix and his associates of House Ghassan. It fits in our alliance's overall programme of peaceful reclamation and of bringing the faith to all the stars in the universe. We have our long-standing and multi-constellation operations in Syndicate, with the Heitil Bairviit corporation as part of Khimi Harar doing God's work. More recently, Prince Seraghis' Zaraehvar corporation joined the alliance, reinforcing our presence and development efforts in Aridia. I hope that this newest chapter in our expansion will become as succesfull as these other glorious enterprises!

A special medbay patient

Noise coming from the direction of Nauplius' hangars in Mehatoor never signifies anything good. 

At least this time it is not the grunting of yak herds bestowed on unsuspecting LUMEN capsuleers as courtship gifts. In stead, upon my return from the anti-drifter mission, I was greeted by shrill prayers loudly shouted by a vast crowd of slaves. 

Sound dampeners keep these yelled prayers from propagating as vibrations through the beams and structural elements of the Lamp. But from some of our own hangars not equipped with such devices, the ruckus can be heard.

I inquired as to the reason of this auditory assault. To my great surprise, it appears related to Yun-Hee Yubari being treated in our medical facility. Nauplius has ordered his hangar slaves to pray for her. Yun-Hee's presence in the medbay is news to me. It was clearly kept confidential (as medical records should be), but that sort of privacy is no longer possible due to the yelling slave horde. 

The news affects me deeply. I have known Yun-Hee as a kind soul, one who could not bear the cruelty of the world we live in. The last time that we met, now over a year ago, she informed me of her decision to end her life. We said our farewells and I never heard back from her. I assumed... but apparently, I was wrong.

I will try to visit her, to find out what happened. Perhaps I will not be allowed in, for medical reasons. In any case, I will pray for her.

In silence.

((ooc: Today's blog touches on a topic that may evoke emotions and affect you, even though Yun-Hee is a fictional character created by an EVE roleplayer. If you are struggling with dark thoughts, please know that there are always people you can turn to. In EVE's community we have "broadcast 4 reps" and on their resources page your can find links to professional help and programs.))

MIO debrief

A debriefing from the MIO is always more pleasant when you are considered an informant rather than a suspect. That being said, no-one is ever not a suspect. 

But, at least in this case, they were quite happy to hear all about the ARC mission against the Drifters. I was surprised that they knew exactly our fleet composition, and how the ships had been fitted out in Jita. Well, perhaps it is not all that surprising, all the core empires (and probably the barbarian kingdoms too) have eyes there. It did interest them though how the Drekavacs were refitted during the mission to enhance the drone effectiveness, and how the pilots reacted in combat. The sensor logs and records from the Indagatrix were copied, rather than confiscated, as I am allowed to share them with alliance strategists.

This is the second big success for Mr. Ivan Firth. First the recovery of biodroid technology, and now this intel. He should be up for promotion soon. That might keep him busy while I plan to go and visit Anath again with Luna.

Battering the battering ram

The Drifters are building disc-like structures in Turnur. These are some sort of battering rams that can impact the Fulcrum's event horizon wall protecting Zarzakh against intruders.

After a cycle of attack on the Fulcrum's lock, the breaching device shown above hides in a spacetime shell until it is ready to redeploy. 

Under the command of DutchGunner from the Arataka Research Consortium, the fleet did something that is not very research-like. They must think R&D stands for Research and Destroy. The fleet not only defended itself against the Drifters attacking it, but it launched an counterattack on the event horizon breacher structure. Staying true to my vow of non-agression, I did not take offensive actions but I concentrated completely on providing remote repairs for the fleet. It was one of the most challenging "logi" jobs I have done thusfar, as the large enemy fleet was spreading out damage and neuts all over our vastly outnumbered flotilla: three Guardians to keep eight other ships (and themselves) alive.

It worked. Not one ship was lost during the ten long and grueling waves of attackers. 

The technology that we retrieved appears based mostly on gravitoleptonic field manipulation. In addition to well known electron spin resonance devices, also muon cosmic resonances were found - signal beacons containing wormhole resonance frequencies. The device uses these as scripts to be loaded into a "phryctorian generator" that creates a wormhole. Below is an image of the generator: it is the small dark structure with five control centers connected to it; it is hovering right above the central emitter port of the disk (you can also see it in the first image of this log entry).

Sadly after the attack, the generator was damaged beyond repair. Near the control towers for the phryctorian generator, we found neurovisial input matrices in the debris. These specialized Drifter controllers allow operators to process large amounts of sensory data. To me this suggests that the spacetime tunnels that the device initiates must then be steered manually by Drifter operators through spacetime towards its target. It would hit Zarzakh's horizon wall and attempt to pierce it.

All these finding are very worrisome: from what I can gather here, the Drifters possess the technology to weave artificial wormholes to anywhere they want. It looked as if this is also how they brought reinforcements to attack our fleet. That is quite unlike jump gates, that require a long process of building, and must be positioned at specially selected quantum entangled resonant points. It is also unlike jump drives that can transport only one (or a few) ships over a relatively short distance of a few light years and require a cynosural beacon on the other side to anchor the jump tunnel. Even the shipcaster devices -needing a huge amount of power- require a beacon in their target system. But the Drifters appear able to steer a wormhole exit to a point of their choice, not bookmarked or visited before, without the presence of a gate on the other side. Weaponized wormholes.

Who knows, used for peaceful purposes this technology may help repair Eve Gate...

Drifters in Turnur

The system of Zarzakh - where the pirate calling himself the Deathless is holed up - is a black hole system. Not a usual one: it has some sort of defensive double-wall event horizon that can be put up around the system. The wall is an impressive feat of spacetime engineering by the Jovians: it is able to effectively seal off the system in four dimensional spacetime. This defensive system has recently been activated from deep within the Fulcrum, the Jovian station in system, occupied by the Deathless. Now nothing can enter or leave the system without being granted passage by those inside the Fulcrum. 

The Drifters, enemies of the Empire, are laying siege to Zarzakh. Like a siege of a fortified town during the Udorian wars, they need siege engines to breach the town walls. The Drifters deploy devices to breach Zarzakh's protective event horizon wall in the systems with a gate to it. They want to punch their own holes through that defensive wall and perhaps capture Zarzakh to use it for their own evil purposes, and/or prevent the Deathless from obtaining more Jovian technology by evicting him from his fortress.

Most of our capsuleers just sit back and happily watch how our two enemies, Drifters and the Deathless, kill each other. To others, a Drifter foothold in the Empire, in Turnur, is an unbearable insult. I feel a bit of both these emotions, and in addition I am curious about what artifacts and new technology can be retrieved from those event horizon breaching devices. 

We can not let outsiders alone investigate this. I will join a fleet by the international Arataka Research Consortium, and will be providing logistical support and remote repairs from a Guardian-class vessel. My political officer, Mr. Firth, was inclined to find this mission too dangerous and best left to the Navy, but in the end agreed that these foreign agents should be monitored while in Turnur.

The fleet is assembled in the Jita trade hub, and will use the auspicious appearance of a wormhole connecting Turnur to a system just a few jumps from Jita. Certainly, this is a sign that God approves of this mission.

Cruise aftermath

The return flight of the cruise was rather uneventful, apart from the expected visit from the Ministry of Internal Order. As soon as we left Megazorm, we were joined by these officers, under the command of an Deacon Inquisitor. There were interrogations of everyone involved, but these interrogations were suprisingly painless, probably in order not to cause international incidents. 

Lady Adelath demanded that mister Maulus and I would be given medals, and given her status the Inquisitor did not make fun of that request, but politely said he would certainly look into that. I am afraid that mister Maulus will miss out on his medal after biting the Inquisitor in the legs - now that I have become his friend, he has to look for other targets for his favorite pastime.

I cut short my stay on the cruise, taking my leave from lady Adelath and mister Maulus, for an urgent matter. It appears that the Drifters are setting up some sort of outpost in Turnur, and there is an opportunity to join a exploration fleet from the Arataka Research Consortium.

This system has been the center of an immense tragedy recently. Minmatar attacks caused a stellar transmuter to malfunction, leading to a huge coronal mass ejection from Turnur star, scorching the inner planet. Perhaps this accident was also caused in some part due to the presence of a hidden and powerful Jovian star gate in the system; a gate leading to the system of Zarzakh, home of the Deathless.

And now, the Drifters took an interest in Zarzakh...

The crime fighting furrier

-continued from September 10th- 

Pondering the design of trash compactors, I remembered that there was also a garbage chute, the one from  which mister Maulus must have entered this chamber. Indeed, several holes were present in the ceiling. 

Helped by the raising level of the trash as the walls close in, and piling up long objects, I climbed up and was able to get into one of the chutes, so I did not join Dr. Setun in flatland after all. It occurred to me that perhaps this was not such a good idea, since I might be trapped there for a long time if I am thought to be dead. Being entombed alive in a garbage chute is not a nice prospect either.

Anyway, my fears were misplaced, since a little while after the compaction, the walls opened up again to prepare for the next cycle. I was able to climb out and leave through the service tunnel. Lady Adelath had already called for backup - the ship's first lieutenant, two cooks, and the entertainment crew were there. 

She presented the case against the captain - the evidence clearly pointed at him. And now there would be more evidence: when he knew of my rescue operation, he tried to murder mister Maulus (and me, but Lady Adelath's priorities were obvious) and with a bit more sleuthing could certainly be linked to the activation of the compactor. 

According to Lady Adelath, the first lieutenant is an ambitious man who hopes to replace the captain at some point. Indeed he did not hesitate to relieve the captain from duty and throw him in the brig. No mutiny was needed. 

We are now leaving Mezagorm, in order to turn over the captain (and the evidence) to the authorities. From there on forward it not be our problem. But it will be a diplomatic mess: In Amarr space, a State citizen murdered a Federation citizen who was an admirer of the Triglavian numerical system. 

Unfortunately, I had to abort my explorations of Mezagorm for now, having obtained only an approximate location of the Tetrimon garrison. The rest of this cruise will be spent in celebratory tea and cookie parties for the safe return of mister Maulus, the crime fighting furrier.

Trash Compactor

In the nick of time, we found mister Maulus. 

In a trash compactor. These are large chambers inside the station, used to collect trash. After a certain amount of time the collected garbage is crushed with hydraulics to a small volume to be disposed more easily.

Mister Maulus was alive! The compactor has not been working for ages. It is connected to the scene of the crime via a trash chute - I should have thought about this before. It was not a neutrino signal but a faint twittering sound that led us to the chute! Lady Adelath praised God, the Empress, and all the saints. 

The only way into the compactor was via a service tunnel. It took a bit of time to open the maintenance hatch that sealed the tunnel. And it was quite uncomfortable to crawl through, I have ripped my monk's robe. Meanwhile while lady Adelath was hovering impatiently outside, calling her pet every ten seconds, alternating with calls instructing me to hurry up.

When I finally came through and entered the compactor, mister Maulus lept up at me. At first I thought it was attacking but it merely wanted a hug. I have never seen a happier furrier, or heard happier tweets. Mister Maulus then went to retrieve his trophy: a piece of captain's uniform, torn from the murderer's pants. I had always thought these animals to be stupid, but here I stood corrected...

At that moment, the compactor started working, its walls closing in as it loudly grinded ancient trash into small pieces of debris. Perhaps I accidentally set it off? I clambered back to the service tunnel entrance, which was about to disappear behind one of the moving walls. I was able to pass mister Maulus through, carrying the evidence in his beak, but by then the entrance had become too small to let me through.

Having died and recloned already a few times, this situation did not panic me. I accepted that this clone was doomed. I found myself pondering whether this was an engineering design flaw - one cannot enter the compactor for repairs if the service tunnel is blocked by the wall.

-to be continued-

Race against the clock

I have already scanned many floors around the 344th floor, but there is no trace of a furrier dead or alive yet. Lady Adelath is staying in her cabin most of the time, where she is praying at the deployable home altar that she has installed there. There is a beautiful travel triptych on her altar, in gilded wood carving typical of the rich and exuberant artistic expression style of Danyana II.

At the side of the triptych, at the feet of Saint Benedicta, there are some scratch marks made by mister Maulus, who uses the piece of art as a scratch pole for his claws when lady Adelath is not looking. Now that he is missing these marks are a potent reminder of his absence, and a focus for her prayers.

Meanwhile, the death of Dr. Setun was reported to the nearest Federation consulate, who petitioned their Amarr counterparts to get access to the site of the "accident". That was politely refused. Through a large amount of legal paperwork it was explained that Mezagorm is off-limits to official representatives of foreign governments including most certainly police investigators. The matter will be dealt with once the cruise docks up at a MIO station, from whence the (largely two-dimensional) remains of Dr. Setun will be transferred to the Federation consulate. 

In order to comply, the captain wants to leave immediately. Of course Lady Adelath protested strongly. She played on the captain's emotions by saying that he ought not to leave men or furrier behind again. 

The captain has given us 24 hours before the cruise leaves, "with or without you" as he said. So it is a race against the clock to find mister Maulus. 

Accusation

Lady Adelath has been doing detective work very actively, despite being upset about mister Maulus. She has this effect on people, putting them at ease. They are feeling relaxed confiding to the old lady in the hoverchair. 

That way, she has been interrogating a lot of folks without them quite realizing it. She has spent some effort talking to an actress that Dr. Setun had a particular liking for - she is here with a holofilm crew to shoot a historical movie set at the Amarr court, and they want to use Mezagorm. It is a Gallente movie, so no doubt there will be depravity and mad emperors.

But it was after the captain came by to see how she was, that she turned to me and told me: "He did it." I wondered how she could know. She said, "Elementary, my dear brother Theodosius. Have you looked at his uniform?" 

I had, and I had noticed nothing particular.

"Well, perhaps a ladies' eyes are needed to see this. He is wearing the same old and dirty uniform since the start of the cruise. He clearly does not take all that much care any more in his appearance." She looked at me, and added "You yourself might take a bit more care about that as well, brother."  

I suddenly felt self-conscious about my old monk's gown.

"Anyway, he took a new pair of pants for his uniform."

I still was not quite following.

"Mister Maulus goes for the tendon at the back of the lower leg, when he attacks. He may not be tall, but he is smart and knows where he can best strike a lumbering pile of meat like our captain. He's probably torn the pants. Our lack-of-decorum captain just plucked new pants out of his closet, the rest is still the besmudged old uniform." 

I found this theory a bit far-fetched. But it had seemed odd to me that the captain took a particular personal interest in our search for the missing furrier, and wanted to dissuade us, saying we needed to depart soon to report the death. No police comes here. His motive according to lady Adelath is his hatred of all things Triglavian - the mathematician was a Triglavian admirer, and that must have blown his fuse - the trauma that he had from the war.

Now of course, we still need hard proof for Lady Adelath's hunch.

Furrier Fury

The lady Agatha Adelath explained that the vital sign tracker of mister Maulus showed that he became very agitated and angry; he clearly went into a furrier fury, ready to attack. Just after this happened, Dr. Setun released the furrier from its leash - also severing the link to the monitoring device. 

It is clear to lady Adelath that this was due to the presence of some sort of danger to Dr. Setun. Mister Maulus -who was quite fond of the mathematician- would want to protect the man that took him for a walk, and attack an enemy. Or the enemy's feet, at least, since this was his speciality (in addition to running off with the remote). And since Dr. Setun released him, it means the mathematician felt threathened. Hence the murder accusation.

I find it a bit far fetched, but I am hard pressed to find counter arguments. Lady Adelath instructed me to return my instruments to this side of the Grand Hall, and use them to try and find mister Maulus (or his little corpse, but I dare not mention that possibility out loud).

He cannot have gone very far. You can imagine Mezagorm as a large city or metropolis made out of immense buildings (lining the Grand Hall and along lanes circling outward from it). But all these buildings are abandoned and without power. It is a darkened, dead city - except for one building. The one used for tourism by Galactic Tours, that have brought their own mobile power station and oxygen tanks and life support systems for it. So, mister Maulus must still be in that building if he is alive. Yet that building is as large as a small town in itself, it has hundreds of floors, so it will take time to scan it. And to reconfigure the scanners for that purpose. It may leave me with not enough time to finish my own project.

But the request of a bereaved lady cannot be refused.

Terminal velocity

I should have known something was wrong when Galactic Tours offered me a full refund and free pass on the next cruise to go to Mezagorm. I refused, I have the equipment there now. They daddled a bit too long before getting me finally back.

Sure enough, disaster had struck while I had been away. 

Dr. Setun went for an evening stroll, to walk mister Maulus, the fedo of lady Adelath. The mathematician fell from a 344th floor panoramic walkway offering a view of the Grand Hall, and took mister Maulus with him in his fall. Not much was found at the place of impact but a splatter of blood and gore, along with some personal effects and the leash of mister Maulus. Poor lady Agatha Adelath is inconsolable, and they did not even let the good old dame go to the site of... well to that spot on the Grand Hall where she might say her goodbyes to the blood splat that is all that remains. 

They only knew it was Dr. Setun from DNA that was retrieved from the blood spatter and because cameras had seen him start his stroll towards the panoramic walkway. How this could have happened, no-one could imagine. The walkway is well secured, but something must have failed, or perhaps Dr. Setun turned off the safeties and climbed over the railings.

I vehemently protested to the crew that lady Adelath should be allowed to visit the place where her dear mister Maulus left this world, so that we could pray there together. In the end, the crew relented, and with some trepidation I joined lady Adelath to go to that site. 

She was shaking in her hoverchair, as she saw the scene. To my surprise, she inspected the scene carefully. A crewman that came along showed us where the leash and fedo harness was found. Lady Adelath carefully investigated what is left of the harness of mr. Maulus. It contains something like a black box recording device that keeps track of mr. Maulus' vital signs, something like runners and other competitive sportive types use. 

She then said, "Brother, I have two things to tell you, and I will need your help with both. Firstly, and most importantly, bless God, mister Maulus is still alive. Secondly, Dr. Setun has been murdered."