With the support of friends in fleet, I was able to take my time mapping out the Takmahl temple rock. I used the Stratios that I had received as a gift during the past Secret Santa party. It felt somewhat strange to pilot, as I am used to the Indagatrix, an Anathema class hull, good reliable Amarrian design. But the Stratios felt much sturdier, able to take a beating, and have a large collection of drones of all sorts to use.
The stalagmite asteroid is very large, and it turns out to have not just one but many tunnels leading inside. Above you can see one of the major entry tunnels, and the (much smaller) size of the Stratios in front of it for comparison. In the backgroud is Aphi's star - the site is located very near the Red Giant basking in its radiation.
The debris you see is part of a vast cloud of debris, remnants of a vast Takmahl space settlement that surrounded the temple, including structure to hold blood sacrifices, places to house the revelers, and a thriving tourist industry, no doubt. While steered the Stratios into the tunnel, fleet members retrieved what artefacts they could find from this debris, in between fending off waves of Blood Raiders coming to "defend" this place.
Inside are cavernous spaces, with some Takmahl inscriptions on the walls, but no real docking bays. There are traces of landings, mooring of ships, but no structures. There are gullys carved out on the cavern's floor, hinting that at one time there might have been some construction that allowed for an atmosphere and flowing liquids. The gully's lead to a pit, and still contain traces of organics, so I think they were part of some horrible blood ceremony taking place inside the temple rock.
I was not able to move much deeper, and emerged from another tunnel, near some of the spires
There are many tunnels, leading to internal cavities, but they do not seem to contain any habitations or ruined docking hangars. But some of them seem to have force fields. A central sunward tunnel turned out to be blocked, although as you can see, it also ought to have been large enough for the Stratios to enter.
The collision sensors appear to have been fooled by the minerals in the rock, since I could not detect any shield. The same was true for an entrance at the top, which appeared to have some radiation coming out of it, hinting at some type of power source within
There's many kilometers of rock below that - the glow appears to come from the rock rather than from the Red Giant's light penetrating. I was wondering how we'd bypass the ships collision sensors - or somehow reduce its signature radius, perhaps by switching off power to the shields, when Alda Malukker spontaneously tried a special experiment...
(to be continued)
