The seeds of faith

About two years ago, I was exploring in Feythabolis, following up on a lead about a possible offshoot of the Talocan civilization in that region. Among the bewildering array of short-lived barbarian kingdoms, one stood out: the Zerg. They were hospitable enough to give me docking rights in their stations for my archaeological expedition. 

Being a friar, I shared my enthousiasm about the Amarr faith, and cautiously attempted some proselytizing. Most Zerg thought I was crazy, whereas in all honesty their own religion sounded to me far more crazy. They believe that all of reality is some sort of simulation ran by Gods who live on a volcanic island, led by a chief deity called Hilmar, which, I pointed out to them, is a system in Kador (perhaps the home of their Gods? It does not have a lava planet, though). 

They were rather adamant about their beliefs and I did not hold high hopes for their conversion to the true faith. Nevertheless, through my friends at the Theology Council, I arranged for missionaries to be brought over, as I had permission to build a small chapel in one of their stations in P8-BKO. After returning back to the Empire, my focus shifted back to my own quest and I paid no more attention to this.

So, you can imagine my delight when I found out yesterday that the seed that was planted bore fruit! I heard that ms. Tather Borg -one of our fleet commanders- had been contacted by the Zerg for a joint operation agaist the Drifters. That they send an official delegation to the Empire and contribute voluntaries in the Drifter crusade, is such an important step towards full recognition by the Empire! I will thank and praise God today for this unforeseen development and pray that they may ultimately join us in full communion in the faith! 

Magnetars

Having investigated the wormholes of Sanctified Vidette, I spent some time now studying its star, a so-called magnetar.

If you ever played with iron filings and magnets as a child, you will have an intuitive picture of magnetic field lines, and magnetic flux. When the field lines are densely packed and close together, the magnetic flux density is high, and the magnetic field is strong. 

Changing the flux density over time is what generates an electromotive force and a current in a dynamo. However, this also implies that when a material is unable to sustain voltage differences, it is not able to change the flux density. So, in a good conductor, the magnetic flux is "frozen". An example of an excellent conductor is a stellar plasma: magnetic flux lines are frozen in the plasma and dragged along with it; sometimes leading to outbursts known as stellar flares.

Now, when a large star with a relatively strong magnetic field collapses, this collapse also drags the magnetic field lines along, squeezing them and leading to very high flux densities. This is the principle of an EMP smartbomb: and imploding plasma concentrates the electromagnetic energy which is then violently released. Except in some stars, that release does not take place, and the magnetic flux remains trapped. The resulting celestial object has a gigantic magnetic field at its surface, far surpassing what we can routinely make and experience. That is basically what a magnetar is.

Magnetars affect our ship's systems, in particular weapons. Some energy gets leeched off the field, making weapons deal far more damage. But at the same time, the field fluctuations make tracking and targeting harder. Sanctified Vidette has these effects up to a level that is compatible with class-2 magnetar systems (just as for the static wormholes it is also compatible with class-2 wormhole physics).

Unshielded life close to a magnetar is impossible - chemistry is altered since the electronic energy levels of the atoms are out of whack. Exposed to the field strengths near a magnetar, the magnetic shift of the atomic orbitals is comparable to the splitting between the energies of the orbitals at zero magnetic field. Atoms would make completely different types of molecular bonds, dealing a death blow to living organisms at the molecular level. 

That is however not the cause of the shattering of the planets in Sanctified Vidette. Solids still form and aggregate into orbital bodies, also around magnetars. The shattering that these planets underwent happened much more recently, as can be concluded from the debris field. Our scientists assume that it was caused by the Seyllin incident. In turn this means Sanctified Vidette must have been close to one or more control hubs in the Talocan wormhole network. 

Perhaps it will lead us one day to the fabled control hub system in Anoikis, the mirror system to W477-P in our own cluster!

Sanctified Vidette wormholes study

I have been gathering data on the wormholes in Sanctified Vidette for a few days now, cloaked and camping inside the system. I am slightly grumpy about the Amarr research station there not letting me dock and rest up - but I assume they will have their reasons. 

Camping out in the cold of deep safes, the nomad way of life, does not feel very reassuring to me. Certainly in the absense of a cloaking technician and the rest of the crew, I am worried when I go to sleep. Will all the systems stay running smoothly? Will I wake up here, or in a my medical clone in Gottin's Lamp? Anyway, for now, it went smoothly. 

I found that there are 60-66 wormholes present in the system at any given time. Of those, always six lead to other wormhole systems, and all the others are K162 exits of a V928 wormhole leading from the Eve cluster into Sanctified Vidette. The six connections to Anoikis are all entrances, they are static wormhole connections leading to each of the six classes of wormhole systems: 

Sanctified Vidette static wormholes

These type of connections are usually observed as originating in class 2 wormhole systems, so there must be some characteristics of class 2 shared by the Sanctified Vidette system. 

The other wormholes connect to systems with a Jove observatory. I found that on average,

• 24%  lead to highsec systems
• 16%  lead to lowsec systems
• 60%  lead to nullsec systems

There is quite a spread, day to day, on these numbers, giving a variance of 5% in these numbers. Now, if we look at the distribution of Jove observatory systems in the cluster, we see that 64% are in nullsec, 16% are in lowsec, and 21% are in highsec. 

So, to within the error bar, the observed numbers are compatible with the hypothesis that, when one of the V928's expire, a new one pops up, drawn from a uniform probability distribution among all Jove observatory systems.

So, for example, since there are 37 Jove observatory systems in Domain (out of a total of 1026 in all the cluster), the probability to that any given connection leads to Domain is expected to be 37/1026=3.61%. A simple statistics calculation then shows that one needs to scan 19 holes in order to have a 50% probability that at least one of them leads to Domain (or 44 holes to have a 80% probability of at least one going to Domain). The short table below gives these results for some other regions (red indicating that the number is over the 60 connections present, so that it is less likely than 50%, resp. 80% to get a connection to that region at any given time).

Rather than going by region, one could also look at distance from Amarr - there are about 50 Jove systems within 7 jumps from Amarr. To get 80% chance of finding at least one of such connections, a scout will need to scan about half of the wormhole signatures in system. That feels about right with my experience of the last week.

Destruction and extraction

Getting into Sanctified Vidette is easy enough, especially with filaments. Without them one has to search for an entrance, and that can be quite a challenge as there are many possibilities and not that many connections. But all in all, with some scouting, and patience for any potential Drifter guardians to leave, this poses no problem.

Getting out turns out to be much more of a challenge! When going back along a V928 to known space, I found the Drifter guardians of the gate waiting just outside, ready to pounce. I tried to stay cloaked and wait it out. But unfortunately, I was decloaked, and locked surprisingly quickly for battleships. I immediately took heavy fire from the Drifter battleships - the Indagatrix did not stand a chance.

I found myself in my pod, and hastened to a nearby station, boarded a corvette, and with anxiety in my heart headed back for a search and rescue for the crew. After so many rescue missions lately, I was well trained. Still, I feared the worst, given the ferocity and speed of the attack - after locking they only needed a single shot. This would not have left the crew any time to get in safety. The only hope I had is that as a precaution for the danger on this mission they were wearing suits that might buy them a bit of time in space, if they survive the destruction of the ship...

I was back in a matter of minutes, and the battleships had already left. I rushed to the wreck! The slow corvette seemed to take ages to cross the eighty or so kilometers separating me from it. 

I despaired! I could already see on the sensors that Mr. Firth's statis pod had not survived, nor any of the crew escape pods...

Then I picked up a faint signal, from a mobile depot within the wreckage, not yet deployed. I had this in the cargo bay, to be able to refit while in Sanctified Vidette, and it had survived the destruction of the ship. When deployed these depots have space for a maintenance crew, and somehow the ship's crew had not only survived but also managed to access a safety hatch on the undeployed structure, and taken refuge there. It is a desperate measure, offering them protection only for a short time, but hope kept them alive long enough for me to find them.

We were in Unel, in the Agiesseson constellation, and first aid was given to the crew in the Chemal Tech Factory station in system (which is also where I got the corvette). This is a factory, so they have good medical facilities to treat trauma wounds. No questions were asked, the improvement of relations with the Federation is a blessing. Nevertheless we did not mention Mr. Firth's occupation, he again pretended to be a warp core mechanic, even though his knowledge of warped spacetime physics is limited.

After praising and thanking God for the survival of the crew, I brought everyone back to Amarr. My insurance manager initiated the standard procedure to buy a new ship - goodbye Indagatrix IV, welcome Indagatrix V. 

Mr. Firth is taking another sick leave to recuperate, and has given me permission to continue exploration of Sanctified Vidette on my own. Mr. Levular Damus, my cloak technician, is blaming himself for the decloaking incident, and needs a bit of time to think things over. The rest of the crew was willing to return back to duty, but I think that for now I will fly the Indagatrix V without crew when exploring Sanctified Vidette. I will be slower, but travel with less worries.

Jove observatory systems

Jove observatories are structures that once were cloaked. We do not really know their purpose, but it is widely believed that the Jove used them to spy on us. Some say they were preparing an attack, others that they were merely acting defensively. Then there are some that say we are not the target for these structures, but the Drifters are, as each system where a wormhole connections to their systems can appear has an observatory. Whatever it was, the structures are now defunct, and sometimes visited by Drifter scrutinizers, the autothysian lancers. 

We are now seeing stronger Drifter activity in these systems, especially caches of Sleeper and Drifter artifacts, in containers that can be hacked. So, the Drifters must have been doing some counter-intelligence on the Jove (and perhaps also us). Now, decyphering their cloaking through what we learned from the Deathless technology, we can find and dismantle these relic sites.

In order to find them more easily, and to find wormhole entrances to Vidette, I have mapped out these systems and bookmarked them for navigation.

All in all, many systems close to Amarr have one of these observatories. The bookmark folder is there for all LUMEN members to use, simply contact me.

V928 type wormholes

Sanctified Vidette is connected to known space through spontaneously appearing wormholes, of a type that has been designated by the code V928. These wormholes are unstable, and dissipate after approximately 16 hours. 

Battleships can pass through the V928 holes, as they permit anything with a mass lower than 375 000 ton to traverse. However, the wormhole is easily reduced by mass passing through: if the accumulated mass of ships is more than a critical amount, the wormhole dissipates. This critical mass lies somewhere between 675 000 and 825 000 ton. So, with a smaller ship and a battleship jumping back and forth once, it can be "rolled", that is forcibly dissipated.

Colonists of wormhole space use this rolling to keep their Anoikis space sealed off. The fewer wormhole connections there are, the smaller is the probability that unwanted visitors will come through. However, that strategy is not possible for Sanctified Vidette: there are at any time just too many wormhole connections to known space, easily over fifty.

Another peculiarity which makes "hole control" (as the Anoikis colonists call it) impossible is that the wormhole entrances (the V928 spacetime anomaly) appear on our side, whereas the wormhole exit (the K162 type of spacetime rift) is in Sanctified Vidette. So, the passage opens from outside Sanctified Vidette towards it. 

But perhaps the most intriguing property of these V928 wormholes is that they only appear in systems that have a Jove observatory. This has led to much speculation about the link between the Jove observatories and these wormholes. Did the Jove place their observatories in systems where they knew these connections appear - to observe not us, but their Sleeper cousins, garnering reciprocal attention by authotisian lancers? Or was it the other way around, are the Jove observatories somehow guiding these wormholes to spawn in certain systems?

On the one hand, it would seem that since the Jove observatories no longer function, the wormholes do not need them in order to be generated. On the other hand, the destruction of this infrastructure seems recent, and perhaps their ancient effect on spacetime still lingers. 

A clue can no doubt be found in that the V928 wormhole we see now is always surrounded by a Sleeper structure, either generating it or temporarily stabilizing it:

These structures are of Sleeper architecture, rather than Jove. They appear and vanish along with the V928 wormhole - probably merely shifting between the locations where there are Jove observatories. 

There are always a pair of structures, consisting of four Sleeper thermo-electric converters connected via Sleeper multiplex forwarders to a central sleeper linkage. The forwarders are massive data routers, and the converters are power sources. While fully Sleeper technology, this is in fact based on older Talocan static gates, that also have four thermo-electric power arrays in the same quadrupole arrangement creating an acceleration gate:

It supports the idea that the Jove (and their Sleeper and Drifter cousins) based much of their wormhole technology on that of the Talocan - just as we are basing ours from them. No doubt the reclamation of Sanctified Vidette will cause a massive advancement in our capacities for spatiotemporal manipulation!

Reclamation of Sanctified Vidette

Under the guidance of our most beloved Empress Catiz, Conqueress of the Void and Avenger of Safizon, the Amarr Navy has begun the reclaiming of Sanctified Vidette, one of the Drifter homeworlds. Our alliance is joyfully joining these efforts, with LUMEN fleets going up and devoted pilots impatient to pierce the dark night of the Drifters with cleansing light.

Drifters, utter perversions of life, found their origin in the Jove civilization that I have been studying more intensely recently. I hope that in the wake of the reclaiming of Sanctified Vidette, we may engage in a thorough exploration of this Jovian wormhole preserve!

My interest stems from a theory that the Jove were jealous of the power of the Ametat and Avetat and stole them, using the excuse that these powerful gifts from the Sefrim should be kept in (their own) safe hands rather than with people they deemed primitive and violent [1]. The Jove, blind to Amarr's holy destiny, deprived us from the power that is rightfully ours. 

So, with the call for capsuleers to help secure our beachhead in Sanctified Vidette, it appears that my own interests in finding the relics, and the interests of the Amarr Navy intersect again. I plan to contribute in ways suitable for me: through intelligence gathering and logistics where I can. I will start with mapping and charting so others may conveniently find their way into Sanctified Vidette.

[1] A particular lead in this investigation points to an agency that during the Jovian Directorate was known as the "Lost and Found Section Unit", set up to search and secure advanced technology that somehow had strayed into the hands of barbarians. I suspect that this Jove agency is the right place to start the search for lost relics.

A special offer

I received a mysterious message, promising me a very special deal, for me only. I had to meet up with someone in one of the many hangars of Mehatoor's 24th Imperial Crusade station, any weekday between 9:00-12:00 or 13:00-17:00. 

The office hours should have been a hint that this was not about a covert operation for the MIO, not a meeting with an informant or a whistleblower, nor - God forbid - an offer of romance. 

My curiosity was piqued nevertheless, so I went.

It turned out to be a Nestor hull battleship salesman.

I have no idea how these marketeers figured out that I have a lot of ISK from the Navy, or that I am an explorer. That the Ministry is listening in on our electronic devices is fine and for the better, but that private companies are listening in or gathering all that information, that is scandalous! 

It is a fine ship, though. 

The salesman gave me a tour, explaining that it is perfect for exploration and rescue missions, sturdy enough to withstand the occasional rogue drone or pirate that hides out in archaeological space sites. It has quarantine bays, top-notch medical facilities on board, laboratories, all state-of-the-art and looking amazing. And it will be mine for the prize of little over a billion isk (isn't that convenient, it is about the amount I received from the Navy), and just for me he would throw in special fittings and an entertainment center for the crew during long voyages.

I was tempted, but I resisted the temptation. The vow of poverty still allows me to keep a few ships, but no more than needed for my quest. I think that such an expensive vessel is not needed at this point, and would be stretching the vow. So, I thanked the salesperson and left.

And next, I will be checking the privacy settings on my Galnet browser.

Refund procedure

-continued from yesterday's log-

Vleckson’s gaze turned from the horizon of his sea of troubles towards me. He had to refocus for a bit before he recognized me.

He made a close but wrong guess. “Ave, brother Theophilus.”  He did not answer my inquiry as to his well-being, probably because the answer was too painful to him even to formulate. He came straight to the point, “What can I do for you?”

I explained that I wanted to return the large sums that I received for merely doing my duty in the fight against the Drifters.

He asked about my invoice, and I confessed I did not have one. Vleckson looked out across his sea again, straight through me. A wind began to blow, choppy waves appeared in front of his mind’s eye. After a while counting the waves, he concluded “It can’t be done. If you had sent us an invoice for your services, you could now send us a credit memo to cancel the invoice, but”,  he continued in an accusing voice, “you received the payment without an invoice. So, you can’t make a credit memo.”  

His eyes glazed over, indicating that as far as he was concerned the matter was closed now.

“Can’t I simply donate the money back to the Navy?”

It seemed as if these words never reached tribunus colonel Vleckson. Perhaps I was shouting against the wind that had risen on his sea. Or perhaps giving back a gift was considered too much of an insult to the Navy to even suggest? Might it have been inappropriate to imply that the Navy had relied much on the paid help of capsuleers?

“Of course, we would not have accepted an invoice without having first sent to you a proper order voucher – you would need to put the order voucher number on your invoice for it to be valid. And we would not have sent you an order voucher if you had never sent us a pricing offer for your services in the first place, to be compared with at least four comparable offers and to be selected by the committee of appropriations as the best offer. And in turn that would only have been possible if you had registered to become a certified supplier.”

The effort of explaining this seemed to have completely exhausted tribunus colonel Vleckson. He closed his eyes, looking sad and a bit forlorn. After a long while – I dared not disturb him – he said, somewhat decidedly, “No. Best approach for you is to file an offer for your past services to the OIT… the Navy’s Office of Intertemporal Trade and hope that it gets, eh, that it got selected. Retroactively. But frankly, it is a stretch, your offer for your past services for such a large sum would have been considered too expensive.”

Vleckson then picked up a random complaint form from the large stack on his desk and pretended to read it. I did not want to torture the poor chap any longer, and returned, feeling defeated.

Office of the ombudsman

Since my calls and online complaint forms about returning the massive monetary reward have gone unanswered, I went in person to the office of the ombudsman of the 24th Imperial Crusade. To be honest, I was also kind of looking forward to seeing tribunus colonel Vleckson again.

The receptionist told me "TC Vleckson is not in today, please come back another day."

“But I see him sitting right there,” I said, pointing at Vleckson.

I could see him sitting behind a stately desk somewhat further away. The office of the ombudsman has an open-office policy, with no barriers between the reception desk and the various workstations. In the State, some corporations do that to symbolize the so-called transparent nature of their business. In the Empire, of course, it symbolizes the fact that nothing can remain hidden from God, and even less can remain hidden from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The receptionist improvised, “... That’s an optical illusion.”

I took a closer look at tribunus colonel Vleckson. He was looking straight ahead at the wall, in the general direction where Vard would be in the Mehatorian sky at this time of day. He was not really looking at anything in the room, his gaze was more that of a battered and bruised Northman of old, staring across a dark grey sea at some eternal storm brewing on the horizon.

“That’s not a holo”, I answered.

The receptionist then used the administrative-nuclear option. He told me that I have to file a request online by installing some application and register to make a login and then book an appointment using another calendar app to check for free dates, for which I also have to register and then link that calendar app with their own app. I might receive a confirmation mail at the end. Or not.

Instead, I just walked over to Vleckson, and greeted him from a distance, “Ave tribunus colonel! Long time no see, how are you?”

-to be continued-

Tribunus Colonel Vleckson

Tribunus colonel Vleckson is a man who likes nothing more than to be left alone. 

He might have become a hermit, were it not for the fact that hermits are supposed to experience the severing of their worldly ties as a sacrifice, and that would not have been the case for Vleckson.

After many years of distinguished service, he requested to be posted to a quiet office job in a quiet backwater station. He got his wish, he thought, as 7th Fleet ombudsman in the far-away province of Aridia. 

Unfortunately, the constellation he was assigned to turned out to be a hotbed of Blooder activity. That is where I first met him. 

After that, he requested another mutation, again asking for a quiet backwater system. But the ways of the Navy are unpredictable. He got reassigned very recently to the post of ombudsman of the 24th Imperial Crusade at the war headquarters in Mehatoor. That is arguably one of the least quiet and relaxed posts there exist, certainly if one takes into consideration that also complaints about capsuleers would end up on his desk.

I, on the other hand, was quite happy to hear that the good old chap was now working in Mehatoor’s 24th Imperial Crusade station, just a short walk away from Gottin’s Lamp, LUMEN’s headquarters. This appears to me as divine providence, making it easy for me to visit him and ask how I can return the 1.5 billion ISK payment that I never asked for, nor deserve.

Training new pilots

No-one at the Amarr Navy seems to know how I should return the ISK that I received. Holocalls get forwarded from one department to another, only to loop around back to the first. I have filled in and sent some query forms, and opened "tickets" in helpdesks. Patience.

Among the various people that my call was forwarded to in sequency, there was also a chaplain. He pointed out to me that the received reward would not negate the goodness of the deeds, since the deeds were performed without expectation, or even knowledge of the reward. Yet he conceded that this reward would be in conflict with my vow of poverty.

This made me reflect also on other good that came from the recent events in the Drifter crisis. Maybe as important to our alliance than the particular outcome and the lives saved, is that fervently doing our duty has resulted in a lot of fleet experience for many members. It forged new bonds of comradeship in battle, and trained new pilots to operate in fleets. 

This experience will no doubt be useful in the future of this conflict. I hope it can be sustained even now that the urgency has diminished somewhat, with ad-hoc fleets forming as they did during the height of the crisis. 

Reward negates goodness

Children learn at a tender age that if you are doing the good thing because you expect a reward, that does not count - it is not true goodness. Acts of true goodness remain hidden. They are no longer truly good when they are advertised and announced in public in expectation of rewards in money or fame. Public acts of goodness exist, like organized charity, and are very worthwhile, but many theologians would argue that these acts are not 'purely' good exactly because of their public nature. Some say that the purest acts of goodness are those that remain hidden even from the person doing good.

I was stunned when I checked my bank account over the weekend.

An additional 1.5 billion ISK has appeared on my account! I nearly fell from my chair. The bank confirmed that it is not an error: the Amarr Navy has paid me this scandalously huge sum of ISK for my rescue efforts over the past couple of weeks! 

For simply doing my duty, I should not be paid. In fact, this payment precludes any goodness of the acts of rescuing that I did. And even worse, this goes directly against my vow of poverty, one of the three vows I took to follow the vision given to me by saint Tal-Romon that set me upon my quest.

Clearly, I cannot keep this fortune. 

I will contact the Amarr Navy to find out how to best return this fortune.

A strange gift

Waiting for me in a neatly wrapped gift crate at the Emperor Family Academy station in Amarr, was some apparel. It gets handed out to those who help against the Drifter incursions.

When I opened it, at first glance I thought this was some sort of Drifter jogging pants. Not just pants - perhaps a full pajama set then? But the clothes were too hard and uncomfortable for that, and had some sort of neck brace. Closer inspection of the note that accompanied this gift revealed them to be general-use body suits that Drifters wear. "Plugsuits" they seem to be called, though it is not clear what they should be plugged in to, there is no electrical cord.

Why would I ever want to wear that? My monk's gown suits me perfectly, very handy pockets. Inner pockets in the sleeves as well, quite handy for notes when one is lecturing or speeching. Perhaps the plugsuit can be worn to do penance, as some form of self-flagellation? 

I talked to some other corp members, it seems to be a gift that many who participated in the rescue missions received. Some suggested that it might be useful for undercover operations during the invasion. 

In such a suit, and blessed by natural baldness and a pale demeanor, I might indeed blend in with the Drifters. 

Let us pray it will never come to that...

Drifter incursions subside

The incursions by Drifters seem to be subsiding as the Amarr Navy emerges victorious in the defense of our territory. 

Now, the battle shifts from space to the laboratory, to Hedion University and so many other research facilities that will sift through the data and telemetry and try to obtain a way into the Drifter homeworlds. We are in a race with the other empires, and even with cursed pirate factions, to carve out a piece of Drifter space. All central powers think that it will succeed, and that it will be a good idea. I am not so sure.

Anyway, the fate of the counter-invasion is out of our hands for now. But LUMEN and its valiant capsuleers can rest in the assurance that we have done our duty to God and to the Empress. And that, in the end, is all that should really matter for a faithful capsuleer! 

The outcome will, as always, unfold according to God's unfathomable plan. Even if we do not understand it, even if what happens is not what we would want or hope ourselves, even if there is an impression that our work was for naught, all that does not matter: the faithful capsuleer finds peace in having done their part, and acceptance of what happens through the unwavering trust that things unfold according to God's will.

The New Understanding

Ever since I made a shuttle trip to Seclusion without informing the political officer of the Indagatrix, he has been accompanying me again on every ship I board, be it my trusty exploration vessel or other ships. The only break was after we went to the battle of Tabbetzur, which caused him a spot of nervous troubles. 

So, he has joined me on the rescue missions by which I have been supporting the Amarr Navy in its battle against the Drifter incursions. He has been on the crew of the Lumen Salvatrix, a salvaging Punisher-class ship, taking notes about the flight tactics of capsuleers that joined our fleet but were neutral to us. 

I think the uninterrupted stream of military stasis pods that has been passing through the Lumen Salvatrix are now once again making his nerves act up. They look so much like coffins... Also, there have been a couple of close calls where the Lumen Salvatrix was into hull. Perhaps this has caused mr. Firth to have nightmares of being in one of those emergency escape coffins himself. 

So, we now have a new Understanding. He will still always accompany me on the Indagatrix, but he does require that I inform him in advance (he emphasized the 'in advance' part) about every other trip I plan to make, in any kind of vessel. If it is not an exploration mission, he will make an informed decision whether to go along or not, depending on what is best for the eternal glory of the Empire. 

Today, in the absence of mr. Firth, the medical crew on the Lumen Salvatrix appeared much more relaxed.