A wedding and a victory

They say misfortunes never come alone, but apparently that is also true of good things.

The wedding yesterday was magnificent. The Farthest Star chapel, usually a quiet place, was filled to the brim. Many Gallenteans came, to my surprise. The Gate seemed particularly active, throwing its whisps of light as if it was celebrating with us. 

The ceremony too was beautiful, the sedevacantist protesters from my nightmares were absent. There was only an interruption by Amadin, who mock objected like a jealous fool. The bride and the groom looked fantastic! There was a reception afterwards, but I may have dozed off a little. Maybe it was the release of the tension that I had felt officiating this wedding that made me sleepy afterwards.

Today, more good news arrived, probably the best wedding gift of all that were given. 

Our war with the Kybernauts comes to an end! God has given us victory! The fall of the Wirashoda Azbel was indeed the turning point, our victories multiplied afterwards. Their resistance crumbled before the onslaught of the unlikely alliance between LUMEN, Electus Matari and PNS. In their hasty retreat, the Kybernauts abandoned or burned down their own last fortresses. None remain, after yesterday's final mopping up operation.

Alas this was but a stage in a much longer war. For the Kybernauts are but the henchmen of their Triglavian overlords. The Triglavians are still strong, even if their servants have been defeated. With all their talk of proving, it stands to reason the Triglavians will not like failure. So, while some Kybernauts now try to seek refuge in the arms of their masters, hoping punishment will not be too harsh, others have chosen to run away and turn to piracy. 

Let us be gracious in our victory, and try to guide these wayward capsuleers back into the fold.

Preparations

I must admit I am somewhat nervous. I officiated weddings before, but never anything so high-profile.

Luna and Franco are getting married, and I have been given the honor of officiating their wedding. This is not merely a wedding, and not merely a capsuleer wedding! No, it is the wedding of our directrix! The wedding of someone I hold in high esteem and like to call my friend.

Everything is prepared, I went over the liturgy and ceremony with the couple. Scriptures are chosen, music is set, traditions picked among the many in the cluster.

And yet I had a nightmare that, as I was asking if anyone objects, a sedevacantist would stand up and start slandering the marriage as the groom is not of the faith - Franco hasn't converted yet. Franco has selected a paranymph - a member of the faith who will vouch for his character and ensure the children are raised in the faith. So there is no religious obstacle whatsoever to this wedding. But still, undercover agents under the influence of Nauplius would no doubt use the occasion to make a ruckus. And I know Aria would quickly take care of any heretic objecting, immediately helped by Ishta. But still.

Welcome mr. Jensen

Mr. Jensen arrived and took up his job as assistant librarian. He immediately made sure we acquire copies of the works of the laureates of the New Eden Literature contest. He is also applying the formalism that he invented, the Jensen index, to our book catalogue. Who would have known that octonion number geometry would be so convenient in library science?

I am glad to hear that mr. Jensen is adapting well as assistant librarian. Some of our customers have a hard time dealing with the disability that makes his slow in comparison to our neurological clocks, so I might consider hiring an additional "Overseer of the Shelves" - the rank just below assistant librarian to help mr. Jensen interacting with our customers.

There was today also an interesting question on the forums by prof. Valate. She wonders if the Takmahl may have knowledge of the Triglavian conduit portals. Probably the Triglavians were around in abyssal space then, but did they ever get contact with the Takmahl? This suggestions appears to me as thunder in a clear sky. I have not seen anything indicating it, but I am intrigued...

Naming ceremony

Yesterday there was a callsign naming ceremony in SFRIM. I think the idea is that a slight humiliation keeps capsuleers grounded, or humble. We had to tell embarrassing stories or failures, and then others would pound on it suggesting silly names. 

With drinks flowing profusely, I knew I had to be fast before the whole thing would degenerate. So, I volunteered first, and told the story of how my Abott called me Dozey, a play on the middle syllable  of my name, Theo-doze-eus. 

It appears that during sermons I meditate so deeply that other misconstrue this and think I doze off. The light humming I sometimes make, prayer during meditation, is also often misunderstood as snoring. Dozey will thus both remain and become my callsign during fleet operations.

I was right to go early in the evening. Some people who fell asleep got pounced on by their fellows and now will be known as Zonk. There's an Onion. There almost was a Fluffy. 

I think now of the joint fleet operations with Electus Matari and Phoenix Naval Systems, against the Triglavians. The proud Amarr fleet that joins our erstwhile enemies in a fight against a common threat. And insists to be called flitter, zonk, onion, ipsy and snoopy.

Stuck

I seem to be somewhat stuck. I finally obtained permission to examine the corpse of Layla Accadis and experiment on it, but I cannot get a clone. At wit's end I talked to a man of the Serpentis pirate faction. I was brought into contact with him by a low-level cryogenics engineer from Lai Dai who works at a clone facility.

I was hesitant. The man, Elaziel Sols, only wanted to meet me at some shady bar. I stood out like a sore thumb in that place. Mr. Sols had no difficulty identifying me. I explained my case, and he told me he can provide exactly what I want: a genetically identical body, without consciousness. I don't trust him. I think I want to talk to lord Garion about this first, he has been my moral lodestone.

In other news, I have decided what to do with my prize money. To keep it related to books, I have set up a skillbook fund. Up till the exhaustion of the fund, I will grant anyone from LUMEN who asks money for a skillbook the ISK to do so (up to a maximum amount of 65 million per applicant). That way, I can adhere to my vow of poverty and help our friends at the same time.

Conflicting emotions

Yesterday evening was the gala for the literature prizes. Even though such social events with famous people and parties and receptions are definitely not my biotope, I had planned to attend this event since it focuses on books. It warms my librarian heart to see writing celebrated, and I was amazed at the quality of the submitted works, and at creativity and wit of their writers.

But given the events of the past days I could not bring myself to partake in the festivities. Moreover, I had promised some families of our fallen soldiers to visit them. I cannot cut such visits short to go indulge myself. No matter how strongly I support this initiative, I couldn't make myself go.

I was happy to learn that my modest scribblings have earned me a prize! I am grateful to my promotor, lord Garion Avarr. Now I feel that I did the jury a grave disservice by not attending. Conflicting emotions, joy and vanity and a bit of guilt. 

I think there will be a monetary reward, and I have to think what to do with it. I fully intend to keep my vow of poverty, and at this moment I do not need more money to pursue my quest. I will reflect on how to put this to good use.

Bringing our fallen soldiers home

Even with all the learning, all the clerical training, even with my ordination to perform rites, I was not prepared for this. Not prepared for its weight, nor for its impact on me.

One of the Kybernauts reached out to us, with an offer to retrieve our dead. Our Directrix contacted me to help. I agreed to meet this compassionate Kyber in Hek, in Republic space close to the faction warfare zone. We easily demonize our enemies during war, but I was reminded by this action that Kybernauts can be honorable persons, who just like us worry about their families and honor the dead.

I was given access to a hangar where the Kyber had stored the remains of our fallen. The hangar had been purged of its toxic atmosphere and disinfected from mutaplasmids. My contact appeared only via holodrone. 

All the caskets and urns were there. I was shocked at the sheer amount of them. Thousands. I was overcome for a little while, and the Kybernaut let me pray in peace as I reached out to God for strength.

I barely could fit all of them in my cargo hold, I had to strip some stuff and leave probes and other material behind in Hek. Faced with this problem, to my own surprise I had switched from a state of disarray to a mechanical state of duty to be performed. I had turned into a kind of numb robot. I remember thinking about the optimal stacking problem in my cargo hold as if it was some abstract mathematical question.

I managed to fit all of them in my hold, and brought the most precious cargo I have ever transported back to Mehatoor, and from there it went forward to Nahyeen, to the memorial garden.

My "numb robot" state passed when the memorial ceremony began. It was as if, when I saw that I had completed my task, I could finally once again go back to experiencing feelings. They came over me as a shock wave. A wave of row upon row of flag draped caskets and urns. I said a few words during the ceremony, I cannot even remember what I said clearly now, I let my training and clerical instinct take over.

As I cannot fall asleep, I pray. I pray for strength. I pray for the fallen that journeyed home with me. And I pray that I may never get used to such missions.

The eerie quiet

Yesterday I flew to Bashyam in the Duchy of Fekhoya, hoping to meet the new candidates for conversion and to bring them into the fold. 

The trip was horrendous.

I got stopped three times by Royal Khanid Navy, and my shuttle got searched by the Chesm Khan. The first time, I was told that due to the recent operations, I could not land on Bashyam and certainly not at the Deritan estate. The only reason that in the end I could proceed on my way, was that I am a capsuleer and this grants special privileges. 

The second time, I started by using this prerogative, and could continue. The third time, they insisted on searching my ship first for contraband and weaponry to deliver to what they call "One Crown Unificationists". Of course they did not find anything, but they confiscated a vial of holy ointment I was planning to use, they took it for drug testing!

I finally was allowed to land at the estate, and what a difference it was with a week ago! No more trace of festivities. The estate looked rather abandoned as I was waiting in the courtyard. No friendly slave coming to bid me welcome and let me wait inside. Some furtive glances from inside the estate, but no-one came out. It was strangely quiet. I did not see the Duchess or any of her retinue coming or going, and waited for two hours. 

This worries me, has she been arrested? At least, there were no traces of violence or battle at the estate, not insofar my untrained eyes can see. I did notice that the Khanid stone garden seemed a bit neglected or ruffled, but that could be from last week's party - I cannot tell. 

I should have checked my appointment in advance, and waited for confirmation. It has been a week since the Duchess had asked me to come by, and many things happened since then. I could not contact anyone on the spot. I hope she was simply held up somewhere else...

Towards troubled Bashyam

The events in the Duchy of Fekhoya kept me awake yesterday night, worrying. 

I have come to know and appreciate Duchess Deritan and several of her close collaborators. Her rise was meteoric, and that resulted in the jealousy of many other noble houses. She is as this hero from legends, who flew towards the sun using wings made of bird feathers and wax. She flew too quickly too high, towards the sun, and her wings melted, and now she falls.

The scheming of her competitors bore its bitter fruit, as they convinced King Khanid to reassert his claim on the Duchy of Fekhoya. Using force, indeed using his elite cyber knights units. This takes place right now, now that the Duchy has been made prosperous again though the labor of both LUMEN and lady Deritan's own corporation. 

I cannot question the wisdom of a Royal heir, but at the same time I cannot forget how adequately and compassionately the Duchess leads her people and thus served her King. 

Tonight I am headed for Bashyam IV, for the Deritan estate. I am converting some servants of the household to our faith. I do not know what I will find there, I hope that the planet is not under a blockade...  but I must go, as I promised.

Battle of Wirashoda

This morning, I found the station in Mehatoor in a celebratory mood. It soon became clear that we have booked a great victory in our war in Pochven. For a while now, together with our allies in Edencom, we have been trying to vanquish the Red Azbel, a kybernaut stronghold from which they produce arms and ammunition.

The Battle of Wirashoda which took place yesterday must have been the largest capsuleer engagement in Pochven yet. The odds were against our fleet. The enemy had amassed a far greater host, and brought in wildlings from Delve, in far greater number than our own barbarian auxiliaries.

Moreover, their stronghold allowed them to reship. As we broke wave after wave of defenders, they kept coming in their Leshak battleships. Our auxiliaries crumbled and fled, but the core of the Edencom alliance - us and our allies from Electus Matari en Phoenix Naval Systems - held fast.

To force the outcome of the battle, and to bring down the Red Azbel for once and for all, the valiant navy plunged forward, guns ablaze, knowing they would not survive. But also knowing that our suicide mission fleet had enough firepower to take down the structure - God granted us victory through our sacrifice. When all seemed lost, faith carried our crewmen and they fulfilled their duty without fear of death, certain of their place at the right hand side of God. Though we suffered great losses, the enemy's loss is greater still. Their factory of evil cannot be rebuilt.

I am convinced that this will be a turning point in the Pochven war. I have offered a prayer of thanks, as it is fitting to thank God for this triumph. My thoughts go out to the families of the martyrs and all others they leave behind. May they find solace and may they be cared for till the end of their days.

Origin heresies

Time to report on some heresies.

Heresies about the Ametat and Avetat, believed by foreign historians and archeologists. There are those in the Federation who claim that these holy artefacts were actually tools or devices from ancient races, appropriated by the Emperor. In their views, maybe even the Sefrim might be members of these ancient races.

The idea of ancient races stems from the commonly believed notion that all races have a common ancestor. It is unlikely that genetically compatible species would evolve on so many different worlds. Even with convergent evolution for the major physiological characteristics, the odds that we would be able to procreate with a different species is vanishingly small. 

The common origin theory is further corroborated by the fact that for example many ruins and relic sites, even Jove or Sleeper ones, operate by the same common safety measures, and can be hacked using the same common information theoretical routines.

This theory is carried further by those who believe humanity came through Eve Gate at some point, such as the Goners and Equilibrium of Mankind. This humanity would have spread accross the cluster. The ancient races would then be those that kept their advanced technology intact and their knowledge intact during the dark ages that befell all others.

These kind of theories fuel the conjecture that at some point, members of those ancient races - Jove? Talocan? Even more ancient? - would end up by accident or by mishap on Amarr, and share their advanced technology with one warlord. Rather than a gift from God, these heresies claim that our most holy relics are remnants of the technology of our farthest ancestors, the first humans to cross the gate.

That heresy aligns with the doctrine of the Goners that link the artefacts to their Anticipator key and to a way to reactivate the gate. Such legends are also present among the other races - the Achur believe in their version of the Sceptre as an ancient and powerful tool.

I feel I should keep an open mind on these theories, even if they feel heretical or at the least heterodox to me, and make me feel uncomfortable.

A new assistant

As I have been away from the library more often recently, I have been scouting for a capable assistant librarian. I have found one: mr. Jensen, who is famous in librarian circles for his book classification scheme, the Jensen Index. 

The good man suffered an accident during travel, a warp core breach in wormhole transit. The gravitational distortion of spacetime during this accident has affected him down to the molecular level. As a result, time appears to flow more rapidly for mr. Jensen since the accident. Conversely, for us mr. Jensen appears to have slowed down. For this reason he has lost his job of master librarian at Hedion's Graduate School for Design. 

We met at the Amarr Civil Service station a while ago, when I was taking care of the formalities for Layla's corpse. He's a big shot, and I was amazed to hear that he was fired. I asked him if he would be interested to work at Mehatoor's library. It took him a while to respond, not surprising given his condition, but he accepted. I look forward to having him in the library.

Concert in Fekhoya

Today I attended the concert by Duchess Deritan in honor of the birth of Marcus, the newborn child of lord Utari Onzo and lady Lasai Raske.

The Duchess performed herself. I had no idea she was such an accomplished flutist!

The pieces she chose to perform with her Khanid bamboo flute for the first part of the concert were all quite energetic and upbeat, and also that was a surprise as I thought recent events must have sapped her energy. At least outwardly, this was not the case. Through her music, she appeared defiant against her competitors at the Khanid court.

The second part of the concert also contained songs that were softer and more evocative of beautiful, peaceful landscapes. It was as if, once the forceful statement was made to outsiders, now she turned to comfort her own people. It ended with a beautiful duet with lady Aselin-Duvaul, a classic piece, the "flower duet".

The concert was magnificent, but I have to admit I still do not feel comfortable with crowds. Certainly with all the decorum and with the nobility present I did not feel at ease at all. Also I was wearing my new ceremonial habit and it itches. My usual one has a hole at the elbow, so I couldn't use it. But mostly, it's the intricacies of nobility decorum that I'm afraid since I am unfamiliar with them and lack any intuition on what the proper hierarchy between the nobles would be.

I overheard Lord-Consort Newelle say that children should be kept out of places where the Chesm-Khan might drop in or drop a bomb, and it seemed to me (a common friar) rather insulting to the hostess and to the guests of honor. Was it proper or not? Probably that depends on the hierarchy and is not clear to me, but it made me ill at ease.

Anyway, I was glad to see Ishta appear. She was late, as always. But all is forgiven, she has passed for her final capsuleer tests! I heard through the grapevine that she was also accepted as a member of SFRIM. I'm not sure if Lord Pitorjee has freed her from bondage, but I am confident that if it hasn't happened already, it will soon.

Ah, I kept the best news for last. Lady Zeresh, reknowned for her expertise in cybernetics and daugther of a famous cyberphysician, agreed to help me with the transplants when I have the clone. These social events have their advantages, even if I feel uncomfortable, they do advance my cause.

Cloning

I have been taking a closer look at cloning.

I found information on illegal cloning facilities that pop up in some systems and then break up camp again a week or so later, before the authorities can catch them. Outside of the empire, deep in the barbarian outback of nullsec, this is how many capsuleers obtain their clones. Yet these illegal facilities cannot guarantee safety or quality of the clone. They cannot be trusted to deliver a defect-free clone that can support an infomorph. Often, it is not even clear what biomass they actually use for their clones.

That may be OK for what I want to do. The clone that I am considering will never house an infomorph. It is mechanical, a tool to activate the cybernetic implants. I only need a shell with functioning organs and a neural system, and the DNA to match Layla's.

Even that is not so easy. The usual clones one gets from a respectable company, even a recent and adventurous startup such as Cromeaux, don't come with a brain. They start from a three dimensional gel structure that matches the shape of their client's brain structure. When the client dies, a scan of his precise state of brain is made, and the clone brain is then fine-tuned to replicate this state faithfully.

What to do in Layla's case? Her brain is decayed, so they can't replicate even the basic structure of the neuronal geometry as they would normally do. Also, there is no intention to bring her mind back, I only need a mindless body with an "empty" brain. It's only role is to allow to the implants to be grafted successfully and to activate these implants so they can be read out. A true clone, grown with its own brain matter in stead of neural gel.

Another hurdle

For us, capsuleers, it is so easy to obtain a clone that it has become almost a reflex to discard and install clones in stations.

So I thought I would be easy to get a clone for the Takmahl corpse to transplant the cybernetic implants to. These ancient implants are tailored to interface with her specific genotype, but can't function on the degraded corpse. So, just get a new body, right?

Well it is not that easy. You can't get a clone of someone else. You can only have yourself cloned.

In the early days of cloning technology, there were some horrible scandals. It is said that most innovations are immediately abused to satisfy some depravities of the human mind in a new way. This has also proven true for cloning. For a hefty price, one could buy a clone of a famous holoreel star. Stalkers with money had their victim cloned. Such cases of abuse of the technology resulted in strict laws.

I inquired both with Poteque Pharmaceuticals and with Zainou (the biggest market players in cloning), but neither companies were willing to help me obtain a clone based on the Accadis DNA.

Astrometrics

My little retreat in New Eden comes to an end, I must return to Mehatoor. I came out of concern about the Equilibrium of Mankind's obvious interest in the gate, but found no trace of them.

I did find a single trace of Takmahl, but a single artifact is not enough proof that there was ever an expedition.

I did do some triangulations of the Gate again. A previous attempt from within New Eden only revealed that the Gate is more than 6000 AU away from the star.

But now that the Gate has become visible from Promised Land, the neighboring system, a better determination is possible. Our ship's sensors now seem able to pick up its image there, but not in Central Point or Canard, the next nearest systems. Only thing visible in Canard is White Sky pirates picking on lost Gate tourists.

This is how it looks like from Promised Land (near the New Eden Gate, also visible in the screenshot):

The New Eden star is also indicated in the picture. Using the tactical display, it's possible to determine the angle between New Eden and the Gate as seen from Promised Land (about 15 degrees). Similarly, the angle between Promised Land and the Gate can be measured from New Eden. Given the distance of slightly over one light year between New Eden and Promised Land, it is then straightforward to get the distance between New Eden and the Gate.

Result: about a quarter of a light year. Much less than the servant sisters lead us to believe. 

A caveat. I've noticed that our display distorts space, especially in the direction orthogonal to the plane of the tactical display. This could affect the measurement, but I don't think it would be to a point that we'd get to the three light years suggested by the Sisters. I'll be sharing my findings with the Kor-Azor science outpost recently installed in New Eden.

Off course

Today, after my measurements of Eve Gate activity, I decided to drop by Goner Sarachem. He was again in his corvette flying to the gate at subwarp speeds, and sometimes I like to journey with him for a little while.

I found him more unresponsive than usually, and what worried me most, he was not flying towards Eve Gate! How has he gotton off course? I checked my astrometry, and it was no optical illusion, he was flying in a wrong direction. 

I tried to grasp his attention by orbiting his ship and by sending out communications. Even bumping his ship didn't wake him. He must have been in very deep meditation.

That, or he was drunk driving today.

Encounters

There's something special about the capsuleers that one meets in New Eden. They're not doing their usual activities - be it battle or industry. Rather, they're searching something. Sometimes they're trying to find out something about themselves. 

Like professor Moriarty. I met him here a while ago and now that he's no longer in New Eden I kind of miss him.

But still I'm having nice and interesting conversations. A man who plans to see all the sights in the cluster, and has made that the goal of his existence. A woman who entered New Eden via a wormhole but feels very uncomfortable when not in a wormhole system, because her name appears in local. A new recruit for SFRIM, with whom I've had a long discussion on the essence of faith, sitting in the Farthest Shore's chapel in the light of the Gate. She asked interesting questions that challenged me intellectually, such as whether slavery is necessary for reclamation or how slavery helps the reclaimed to find God.

Pot shards

I am enjoying my time doing field work in the New Eden system. The sight of the gate calms the mind. I have to confess that it feels a bit like a vacation...

I stumbled on something very curious in a relic site: a Takmahl artefact. A gyro ballast. It's nothing quite impotant, it would be like finding pot shards on Aphi. What's weird is to find such a pot shard in an excavation on New Eden I. It doesn't belong here - the common belief is that the Takmahl influence didn't extend very far outside of the Araz constellation.

Could it be brought here by visitors later on? Maybe, but the Sabik ruins where I found it did not seem looted before, and date from the late Takmahl period. It is not unthinkable that the Takmahl organised explorations, expeditions to far away regions. It would take them many years in their cryoships, but that did not stop them before.

Anyway, one "pot shard' can be a coincidence, I must go and search for more evidence if I want to make this claim.

Twice good news

Good news arrived to today! I received the finalized paperwork from the Amarr Civil Service allowing me to bring the Takmahl corpse from my archeological expedition into the station, and to do research on it. My next step, as soon as I return from my visit to New Eden, will be to procure a clone into which I can transplant the cybernetics and hopefully be able to read them out.

Other good news that came to my attention is that a joint fleet of capsuleers from several empires achieved a major victory over Kybernauts in Pochven. LUMEN was present, including lord Sakakibara, and joined a vast international coalition with amongst others... Electus Matari. Even though I am happy that we band together against our common enemy and even though I hope this will lead to constructive peace talks, it still feels very awkward. I fear it will widen the rift between the traditionalists and the reformers in the Empire.