The Monastery of the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the monastery that now houses the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl. 

It is an ancient structure, actually predating Empress Jamyl's time. I am correct it was built by the Khanid Order of Paladins. It had fallen into disrepair, around the time that also the Tetrimon Order of Saint Jamyl had become inactive. That is, untill Baron Redwolfe put his shoulders under the project of reviving this order to which his ancestors belonged and restoring both the order and the monastery to their former glory. 

Of particular interest is a large library that belonged to the Khanid Order of Paladins. It contains a vast number of ancient scrolls and I do not think that they have been translated or studied ever before. These paladins practiced the Exercises of Saint Aloysius of the Quill and had their knights copy scripture and write up things by hand. So many secrets lie there, and records of forgotten histories! I felt like a child in a candy shop! 

But looking at the bad climate control, this was closer to a candy shop of horrors. 

Time and nature took its toll on the library. The current shielding of the windows helps to keep rain and wind out - but nothing more. It is woefully unsatisfactory - I do not blame Baron on the Order, this is something that requires the tender love and care of proper librarians and conservation experts. 

I have arranged for a quick transport of climate control equipment - temperature and humidity should not be allowed to just go along with the weather outside, but should be very carefully controlled and kept at an optimum for preservation. Lighting should be adapted too - there are gorgeous frescoes of star maps that we must protect from fading. A team from the Lamp's library is going over to install the equipment as I write down this log entry. I'll go and inspect things as soon as they're ready.

Pochven wormholes

The Talocan were masters in weaving jump connections between stars. They did not use the gate network that we found in space and that the core powers still use to this day. I am curious about their technology - I believe that it was later copied by the Jove and may now resurface in Zarzakh. I am also interested in the network logic behind these connections. Deciphering this will lead us to discover hubs in their ancient network and it will offer new insights in this ancient race.

Coming Sunday, I plan to go the recently restored monastery of the Tetrimon Order Saint Jamyl. This order is a chapterhouse of LUMEN, headed by Baron Redwolfe. The monastery has a repository of ancient star charts which could be of use for my current investigation.

Another connection that I see is the Triglavian's creation of Pochven. They blocked the existing jump gates and created new pathways. The spontaneously appearing wormholes reacted to that, as they did in Turnur. The wormhole connections to Pochven were studied by Electus Matari - a rebel group that we had a temporary alliance of convenience with during the first and second Khybernaut wars. They compiled an entry manual to Pochven. 

This proved very useful in the wars against the Khybernauts, but it also showed that the C729 wormhole connections to any given Pochven system randomly walk around in only a limited amount of target systems, close to the original location of the Triglavian occupied system. For example, to get to the occupied Amarrian system of Raravoss in Pochven, one has to scan for wormholes in the following set of systems:

image from: https://pochven.electusmatari.com/

This is of course different from Anoikis. But I think it shares the property of randomness hiding regularity. If it could be deciphered for Pochven, perhaps it can too for Seclusion.

Research question

Wormhole connections are random. Supposedly, at some point, they were not. They were controlled by one or more Talocan orbital structure the size of entire star systems. However, when that went defect, the wormholes started appearing and shifting randomly, which they do up to this day.

Nevertheless, some veteran colonists of the wormhole systems have developed an intuition about the general region where the next static wormhole will pop up. They say things like "Oh, we have had our highsec static show up twice in Caldari and then in Minmatar space, the next one will likely be Amarr." Perhaps they are just guessing. They cannot explain the logic behind their hunches. But it has been noted by some etnographers of the voidlanders - as our wormhole colonists call their culture - that these hunches tend to be right in a statistically significant way.

This does imply that there is some hidden order in the apparent randomness, an order that we have not discovered yet. The cluster's brightest minds - at Hedion University, in the Arataka Research Consortium and in the Signal Cartel - have devoted all their energy to it, and could not find a pattern.

That should not stop a lesser mind like mine to take a fresh look at the problem, an make their own inquiry for the fun it. Of course, one should heed the failures of the past. Going for the grand goal of predicting every new connection is a proven delusion. Similarly, it is impossible to map out the entire time-evolving network of wormhole connections, even for a formidable alliance as ours.

So, I will start very humbly by looking at our very own corner of Anoikis, where I can ask Publius to give me daily information on where our C1 static leads to. I will then look for geometrical patterns in space,  tracing how the exit of our static makes its random walk around the Anoikis cluster. To me, that seems more relevant than arithmetic patters based on wormhole identifier numbers. 

Reflections on YC126

The start of a new year is a good occasion to reflect on the previous year. 

At the personal level, I thank God for guiding me into making a bit of progress with my quest. One lead that I continued to investigate is that the Takmahl, settling in the Araz constellation, had taken the holy relics. After searching there rather thoroughly, this trail led me onwards to Aridia, along the Blood Raider highway from Araz to Delve. I found a Takmahl biodroid with the help of my friends, and clues of the involvement of the Jove. I tried to find a passage into Jove space, only to find that other capsuleers who did so before me closed that door and lost their mind. These are still leads I must pursue this year, continuing in Aridia with a focus on the Anath system. I also need to gain more knowledge on the Jove and on the Talocan - the latter are a common denominator behind both the advance of the Takmahl and the Jove. A parallel (and very different) line of investigation is the idea that the Order of St. Tetrimon, working for the Council of Apostles, hid the holy relics. I followed that particular trail to Mezagorm, but had to abort that search prematurely. I will return and continue the search.

At the level of the Societas, and Khimi Harar at large, two notable events spring to my mind. Firstly, Prince Seraghis and his Zaraehvar combat group fought bravely to pacify Aridia, but after initial victories, the protracted battles wore down their forces, and they retreated, leaving the security in Aridia fully in the hands of the Amarr Navy again. They also left our blessed alliance. 

Secondly, there appears to be a wormhole renaissance, with waves of new settlers going to Anoikis. Our wormhole system of Seclusion has become a bustling industrial hub, thanks to the efforts of Publius Cornelius Felix, and his associate Isidorus. At Pilgrim's rest, we have now enlarged the Chapel and dedicated it to St. Vasrayi. The increased focus on Anoikis will be a help in my investigations of the Talocan.

At the level of the Empire itself, the notable news of this year are the new insurgencies flowing over from the warzone into high security systems such as Mehatoor. These have been a concern, and we have helped suppress this, earning praise from our beloved Empress. The insurgencies have also heralded the advent of a new type of warclone, the vanguard. The insurgencies and the vanguard are linked to a new enemy, the Deathless, whose illegitimate use of a Jovian station is putting the Drifters on a war footing, causing alarm not only in our Empire but in the other concord powers. 

Calendars and numerology

Another year has passed. In our own traditional calendar, we welcome the year 23363. Since New Eden universal time was agreed upon at the Yoiul Conference, people commonly use a calendar that sets year zero at the time of the Yoiul Conference. In that scheme, we are now entering the year YC 127. 

Having an universally agreed master clock to which others are calibrated is essential for trade. Official timestamps allow to find out who placed a buy or sell order first. But establishing this is particularly difficult for interstellar trade. Two traders moving at relativistic velocities with respect to each other disagree on the order that events take place - the concept of simultaneity is relative to the frame of reference. So, a choice must be made beforehand on an arbitrarily chosen "trading frame of reference" for timekeeping; an "arbiter" that says who or what comes first. 

This master clock and master frame of reference is kept fixed at the Secure Commerce Commission headquarters in Yulai.

For the purpose of determining who is first, the choice of when to put "year zero" is irrelevant: only time differences matter, not an absolute value. But apparently, it does matter for numerologists. I had a discussion with one at the new year's reception at the library. Numerologists like to play mathematical games, especially with prime numbers. I was informed that 23363 is a product of just two primes, 61 and 383. Before the advent of quantum computing, such numbers were used in cryptography, since it was believed then to be computationally very hard to find the prime factors for large numbers.

The number 127 is also prime, moreover it is a so-called "Mersenne" prime. Those are prime numbers with an additional property: they are equal to some power of two, from which one is subtracted - the seventh power of two is 128, subtracting one gives the prime number 127.

I have no idea why this matters to numerologists.

Misbehaving

It was busy at the Lamp's bar tonight. Perhaps a little bit too busy for mr. Maulus, who ran amok. Spilling his food, and running about kicking some glasses, and pecking at poor Luna's feet. Our directrix appears to be not keen at all on furriers. Strange, I thought she loved all animals, but furriers clearly are an exception. Perhaps a furrier trauma in the past?

It came to a point that Gaun and I had to keep mr. Maulus in a box for a little while. A spatious one, certainly, but I did feel somewhat bad about it. Next, I worried about all the stuff that mr. Maulus had been munching, picking off food from guests of the bar. 

Gaun told me that furriers cannot cope well with with capsaicin, the compound that makes chili pepper hot. I think it is a trait I share with furriers; and now I do know why chili laced chocolate was bad. Perhaps Rebechia's blood sausage contained some chili? One cannot be sure without proper chemical analysis, but mr. Maulus was acting a bit strange in his box.

I took him back to my quarters, and to my relief he returned to his old self almost as soon as he was released from that box. In retribution for being locked up, he destroyed another pair of sandals. But at least that tells me he is feeling all right.

Hospital visit

As lady Agatha's surgery has been delayed a bit, I brought mr. Maulus over for a visit. It is clear they miss each other very much. Lady Agatha has knitted a sweater for him, in joyful yoiul red, and with little reindeer antlers, so he will be able to celebrate the new year in style. I received instructions for the festive meal, including mr. Maulus' favorite champagne.

The advertisement campaign came up during casual conversation, and lady Agatha suggested to run an in-station advertisement campaign. 

Some time ago, we did try sending uplifting messages to display in the stations, but as far as I know, it has not been accepted for cluster-wide broadcast. I still have one of the versions on my datapad - low resolution and without sound. It was not really geared to be a recruitment holoreel (that is the kind of advert that they do air), rather it was meant to spread scripture. Perhaps that is why it was not selected for airing. Perhaps we can revisit the idea.

Advertising

To participate in the pious pod program and steer capsuleers towards service for the empire, LUMEN has put out in-space advertisements. I helped, taking charge of some of the targeted locations.

The idea is to put out a secure contained that displays a message. A short message only, one does not read a whole wall of text while warping gate to gate. It has to be catchy. I am no marketeer, but I do not think our messages "LUMEN recruits" + a galnet address quite make the cut. And "Save your soul and enroll!" sounds too aggressive. 

Mr. Firth suggested "Death to the enemies of the empire" + a galnet address that actually installs an MIO trojan. One should always be careful what to click on. I explained him that LUMEN prefers a gentler approach, the carrot rather than the stick, so to say. He was not impressed.

In Hedion, secure cans cannot be littered in space. A fine measure, there is already too much junk we leave about in orbit of planets or jump gates. So, advertising requires a mobile depot. This is a small base of operations in space, allowing to refit your ship, and keep a stock of goods and ammunition. Overkill to be used for an advertisement board if you ask me, but on the other hand we can use it to hand out fee copies of Pax Amarria to those who stop by.

Genolution livers

There have been some delays for lady Agatha Adelath's operation. She is getting several new organs, all top-of-the-line, with which she can face her fourth century of life as if it is the first. 

Now she has had second thoughts about a Genolution liver that was to be implanted. In itself, it is a very nice piece of bio-engineering, hand crafted and grown from individually selected stem cells by expert artisans. It has very good natural resists for fatty food. It has been upgraded with an energized membrane for improved alcohol resistance. It can easily passive tank three gin-tonic damage per hour. In addition, there is an active ancillary hepatic repair module with nanite biopaste. So, even the most serious Yoiul dinner attack should be no problem.

The problem is that it is a smart liver.

Such health monitoring smart organs are quite a fad nowadays. It connects to her datapad for readings, and you can fine tune all sorts of metabolic processes and it helps you keep track of your diet. 

But cookies are a major concern. Not the buttery one, but the sort of spyware that big corporations like Further Foodstuffs or Nurtura or Quafe leaves on your electronic devices. In your liver these allow to track your eating and drinking habits with much more accuracy, generating much more detailed data. These can then be used to create and advertise very personalized food, more irresistible to you than a hard drug. The data is also sold to any medical provider so they can more accurately limit your health plan coverage and determine an appropriate price. 

Lady Agatha, like many people of a certain age, does not want her liver to be remotely accessible. She fears it could be hacked, compromising both her privacy and her bowel movements. 

However, Genolution no longer makes livers that are not connecting to galnet, so it is not simple to accomodate lady Agatha's requirements. You could shield it from galnet, and try to use your liver offline. But livers nowadays automatically download updates, and that is a feature difficult to turn off: it will start complaining daily if it cannot update properly. They say they have found a workaround, but it will take some time.

The Pious Pod Program

A little while ago, an influential opinion piece appeared in Faith and Law, the quarterly glossy journal of the Theology Council. It was written by deacon Azir, who has been the spokesperson of the Theology Council on many occasions. In his letter, he denounced the fact that the Empire pours a disproportional amount of resources in educating and training new capsuleers, notably in Sehmy, Emrayur and Chaven. They get training and free ships, but statistics show that very few remain diligent in their duties to the Empire afterwards. The lure of wealth and power corrupt capsuleers all too easily, and they seek fortune in criminality with the likes of the Deathless. This, they can do with minimal punishment: diminished standings were lambasted as a joke. The piece ended with "Should we really keep investing in our own future enemies?"

It sparked a lot of debate in the Theology Council, ending in a compromise between pro- and anti-capsuleer factions. The Supreme Sobor of Theology decided that the Empire can keep training capsuleers without implementing measures to reduce their freedom afterwards, but in its ruling it also stressed that more should be done to keep Amarr trained capsuleers from going astray. The news of this ruling was followed by a harsh sermon by archbishop Drusius Qosh, speaking at the council's headquarters in Avair, exhorting all faithful capsuleers and capsuleer organisations to do their part in reclaiming those capsuleers that fell prey to the demons of greed, power, and heresy.

In a measure towards implementing the Theology Council's recommendation, the Ministry of Internal Order launched the "Pious Pod Program", a communication campaign to reclaim wayward capsuleers for the good cause.

Today, that news trickled down to the captain's desk of the Indagatrix, as mr. Ivan Firth handed me the leaflet of the program and asked how I plan to contribute.

The wait

No news yet from lady Agatha, she is in the hospital that she hired for the surgery. One of the floors has been transformed into her personal suite. They are waiting till to the medicines needed to prepare for her surgery do their thing. I have been burning a candle regularly at the chapel for her well-being.

Meanwhile mr. Maulus has been integrating well into our little Societas family. All in all it has been a few very uneventful days with only a few minor concerns. I need to buy new sandals. And for some reason Mr. Maulus is fond of guarding the origami arts and crafts section of the library, customers have been complaining about being chased away by him. Mittens enjoys the show, looking at it from a high perch on top of the do-it-yourself home repairs bookshelf.

Unfounded worries

I have been worried about nothing.

I thought it might be a problem to have mr. Maulus as a guest. Not because of assassins, that is nothing we cannot handle. But, I was worried about the reaction of my cat Mittens. Would she allow an intruder in her domain? Share food? And would mr. Maulus feel at home, or would he try to escape through the cat-flap in the door? Should I lock the cat-flap?

It turned out to be no problem, they hit it off right away. They even share the red blanket - the one that I am not allowed to use when Mittens decides to install herself on it for a nap. 

Hopefully they will not synergize on mischief.

Contacting the expert

The myriad of Jove factions are confusing me. I want to learn more about the Lost and Found Section, that retrieved artifacts deemed too dangerous for primitive civilizations that would stumble upon left-behind technology. Perhaps there was also another agency, that distributed technology, like they gave pod technology to the Caldari? How would that work?

There is very little information to be found, even on which faction of the Jove would take an interest in other civilizations' advances. So, I decided to contact the leading expert on the Jove, Uriel Anteovnuecci.

I wonder if he will have time to answer my missive. Perhaps a visit to the library, to sign copies of his work on Jove history? With the détente between the Empire and the Federation this should be no problem. And he is a member of the Arataka Research Corporation, to which I also contributed. 

We will see...  

A guest

Lady Agatha is convinced that there has already been an attempt to kill her pet furrier mister Maulus. 

"Attempted furricide", she calls it. 

Someone fed him chocolate laced with ginger, which made him vomit on a fifteen-centuries-old heirloom Kadorian pillow. This has given relief to mr. Maulus who now appears to be fine, according to the small army of veterinarians and regular doctors that Lady Agatha had summoned.

She now fears more for mr. Maulus's life than for her own.

She has half asked, half commanded me to take care of mister Maulus while she is in surgery and recovery afterwards. I seem to be the only person besides her that mister Maulus does not spontaneously maul. But the most important reason why I should be doing this is that she believes mr. Maulus will be safe in Gottin's Lamp, given its renowned top security measures. 

I am glad I have not told her about the contortionist killer janitor that got in through the ducts, or about that time a Sedevacantist was pinned to the altar with a knife, or the theft of ms. Griffiths's bath water, or the deadly toy attack, or the thing in the pool. And that's just last year. Well, perhaps a bit longer, but you get the point.

Anyway, it seems we will have a guest for a little while. 

PS. I forgot to ask whether it is the chocolate or the ginger that has to be avoided. I never had to take care of a furrier before. Luna will know, she loves animals.

The Heir

They should have seen it coming, the heir-hopefuls to lady Agatha's fortune.

She has named mister Maulus, her pet furrier, as the sole heir to her entire fortune should she come to pass. 

Furriers cannot manage wealth, but there is a way to make it work, by setting up a corporation for the special purpose of making mister Maulus's life comfortable and tending to his every wish. That corporation -run independently of the family- has been set up and has been made inheritor.

A furrier cannot be a Holder (at least not after the mad Emperor's decrees were revoked), so that title will go to her preferred great-great-granddaughter Irene Adelath. Needless to say, the rest of the family was furious. They pleaded and threatened, some tried to bargain to keep at least the race horses or the collection of old-timer three-masted sailing boats (including slave crews) of the late lord-consort. She did not budge. Maulus gets it all. He likes sailing, according to lady Agatha.

I was very much embarassed that the Societas and, indirectly, me are also part of the will - we will inherit the library of lady Agatha's late husband should the worst happen to her. According to lady Agatha, mister Maulus does not like reading stuffy books, and for chewing he prefers the latest fashion magazines. Nobody else in the family seemed to care about these books.

There will be tension over Youil dinner in House Adelath this year.

Salt, smoke and alcohol

Good news: lady Agatha is not terminally ill. But, she has to undergo surgery. Nothing very serious, they are replacing a few internal organs that were failing. However, for a frail lady of three centuries old, even standard procedures of surgery are never without risk, and will require a long period of revalidation. So, it is a wise choice to get the prayer of the sick. In addition, I also took confession. 

She does not use a standard confessional, but uses her Holder's prerogative to do this in the comfortable setting of her living room while having her afternoon tea and pastries. And gin. 

The latter may have contributed to the deterioration of her liver, according to her doctors. But she brushes away the doctor's concerns. According to lady Agatha, the best way to conserve food, or indeed anything organic, for a long period of time is either salting it, smoking it, or preserving it in alcohol. Why modern medicine advises her against salt, smoking, and alcohol is beyond her comprehension.   

She did not only complain about her doctors, but also about her grandchildren (her children and her husband passed away already). According to her, they are eagerly awaiting her death, in order to inherit the vast fortune of House Adelath and the Holder title. 

Now that she has to get surgery, the "vultures are circling closer", as she puts it. So, she has altered her will, and wants me as a witness tomorrow when the notary from the Amarr Civil Service administration comes to officialize the changes.

An urgent request

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this year's Saint Razhden's Day celebrations. I have received an urgent summons from lady Agatha Adelath, requesting that I administer her the prayer and anointment of the sick. This is a rite, not that common any more nowadays, that gives grace for the state into which one enters through sickness or injury, and asks God for strength and endurance of the ordeal of illness or infirmity.

The message was delivered by a courier, hand written on white silk paper with gold ink. The courier did not know what illness struck lady Agatha. Of course I am now very worried that she may be terminally ill. I grew fond of the old lady who was my travel companion during the cruise to Mezagorm...

A brief history of wormhole space

The Talocan era

The Anoikis star cluster is situated at a distance of roughly 1500 light years from Amarr, far beyond the reach of modern jump drives. It is believed to have been first colonized over 6000 years ago by an ancient and advanced race, the Talocan. They were masters in manipulating spacetime, far outstripping even the Jove in that particular science. We now believe that the Talocan could alter the very fabric of spacetime to allow easy travel via artificially generated wormholes. 

There was a control hub for these artificial wormholes, hidden in our very own cluster, in the system W477-P. This hub would have consisted of a vast orbital lattice surrounding the W477-P star. One of the functions of this stellar swarm was to generate and stabilize wormhole passages at will. There have been rumors of similar hub in Anoikis, but to this date it has not been found. 

The Talocan used this technology to maintain a network of interstellar routes in Anoikis, in our cluster (bypassing jump gates), and between them. Some believe that the Talocan even manipulated the locations of the stars in Anoikis or the strength of their gravitational field, but that is generally considered far-fetched. 

The Talocan vanished, both from our cluster and from Anoikis. We do not know what happened to them, nor exactly when they vanished. They left behind only a handful of derelict structures, among which the wormhole control hub around W477-P, which has kept functioning until fairly recently.

The Sleeper era

A certain faction of the Jove, the Sleepers, discovered this wormhole travel hub, sometime near the end of the Second Jove Empire, roughly 1000 years ago. The Jove of this faction are called Sleepers because their bodies reside in permanent hibernation, and they live their lives as disembodied infomorphs in virtual space. They did not inform the other Jove about the Talocan highway to Anoikis. The Sleepers relocated, in secret, to Anoikis to escape the internecine Jove wars that ended the second Jove Empire. 

It is only fairly recently, three hundred years ago, during the Third Jove Empire, that their brethren found out where they had gone to. By then, Sleepers had thoroughly colonized Anoikis and had become its new inhabitants, heirs to the Talocan. You will encounter Sleeper structures in wormhole space, and their drones are still active there. They will attack you, for example while you mine. They will become more ferocious going from class 1 to class 6 holes.

The Seyllin cataclysm

All this time, the passage to Anoikis remained a well-kept secret - parhaps only known to the Society of Conscious Thought or the Sisters of Eve. This changed abruptly on March 10, YC 111, when a cataclysmic event occurred that revealed Anoikis to all.

That day, the type-O giant blue star at the center of the Seyllin system in the Federation erupted with a ferocity never seen before. The eruption resulted in an highly energetic and strongly-focused plasma flare that not only destroyed the Gallente colony on Seyllin I, but also reached a hidden entryway to the Talocan wormhole network. 

The flare's energy was injected in the hidden Talocan network, leading to an overload of the network and a concomitant overload of the Talocan stellar engine at W477-P. The wormhole control hub was critically damaged. As a result, the wormhole connections were no longer kept in check and became uncontrollable. Suddenly, hundreds of unstable wormholes opened up all over New Eden, offering temporary pathways into Anoikis that could be traversed by our ships.

A mere six years after the Seyllin cataclysm, W477-P went supernova, and the Talocan control infrastructure stabilizing the wormhole network was lost. The remnants of the supernova can still be seen in the sky, and are known as Caroline's star. As a result, for the foreseeable future, wormholes will continue to appear randomly throughout our cluster, and they cannot be stabilized any more. 

The Capsuleer era

Wormhole connections to Anoikis are short-lived and randomly connect stars. This inherent instability is why the Empire's rule of law cannot be enforced in Anoikis, and no territory can be claimed. At first, Concord tried to ban all travel to Anoikis, but this travel ban was soon defied. The first (non-Jove) person to enter Anoikis was a Jin-Mei astrophysicist from CryoDron, Lianda Burreau. She is believed to have died at the hands of the Sleepers.

Of course, capsuleers and their organisations -attracted by the lawlessness of the place- could not be stopped either. They are now the de-facto (third-wave) colonists of Anoikis, battling over its resources with the remnants of the previous inhabitants, the Sleepers.

Geography of Anoikis

Introductory note: As I was taking visitors and new personnel for the Chapel with me to Seclusion during my visit last week, I prepared a primer for them about Anoikis. This was also useful for me! When I was young, nobody knew of the existence of Anoikis, and it was a surprise to me when I first came back from the asteroid monastery to worldly matters. So, I decided to put this primer in my own log for later reference.

Today, I will start with the first part, geography, and tomorrow I will compile the next part, history.

Geography

Anoikis is a star cluster situated about 1500 light years from Amarr, in what would be called the south-western direction along our cluster's plane. Just like our cluster, it is a circular, disk-shaped cluster. It contains about 2600 stars, so half that of our own cluster of known worlds, grouped in sub-clusters. The stars have been named according to their stellar catalog number, starting with a "J" and then a number. That is why Anoikis is sometimes also refered to as "J-space". 

The stars are categorized in classes, ranging from class 1 ("C1") to class 6 ("C6"). The higher numbers are more dangerous as their original denizens (discussed below) are more entrenched. Many stars are unusual: among them are plenty magnetars, black holes, red giants, pulsars, and so on. 

The stars are grouped in constellations and regions, but there are no jump gates, nor fixed routes connecting them. The regions' designation start with a letter ranging from A (containing the C1 stars) up to F (containing the C6 stars). 

The map above shows the shape of the Anoikis cluster. Coordinates are in light years, putting Amarr at the origin. So, the center of Anoikis is about 1000 light years south and 825 light years east of Amarr.  The two coordinate lines in the graph point out Seclusion's location.

The colors refer to the class: C1 purple, C2 blue, C3 green : these systems always  have wormholes that connect to our own cluster. They are the entrance gate, and probably were the first to be colonized. From there it goes outward to C4 yellow, C5 orange, and the last subcluster C6 red.

New library of Scripture

Great news today in the librarian world: a new library of the Scriptures was unveiled. It will be the largest Scripture library for commoners, and it was opened under the patronage of royal heir Ersilia Kor-Azor. I have booked a ticket to visit, but the admissions office is overwhelmed at the moment and there is a waiting list.

Some of our non-Amarr friends have the misconception that the Scriptures are one, or perhaps a few holy books. Something that you can put in your luggage, or fit on a bookshelf. As lord Lok'ri -whom I have had the honor to meet in person- emphasized to foreign delegation asking about scriptures: the totality of scripture does not fit in a room. It encompasses all of Amarr's history and culture, and evolves constantly.

People are familiar with the most famous books - writings of the great prophets, such as Dano Gheinok. But that is just the tip of an immense iceberg. All the writings of all the emperors are part of scripture, as are the scientific breakthroughs, and even the Book of Records with all the names of every Amarrian that ever lived. This alone requires a building with huge sprawling underground levels. Not all of it is accessible to commoners; access must be granted by a Keeper of Records.

So, bringing it together, using historical copies and new prints as well as, I imagine, scanned data, in one location is a big enterprise. One that fits the aims of diplomacy and knowledge of house Kor-Azor. And it is a thrilling prospect for anyone to see this mirror image of Amarr, in scrolls and engravings and books.

Some may wonder, why books? Why still use something as archaic as ink on paper? It is not merely for the beauty of it, or for the respect of tradition. It is not just because ink is still readable when your capacitor is empty. But it also offers historians a view on how this data evolved in time, from the distant past to the present, and gives it some perpetuity. 

It is easy to alter electronic data in a way that cannot be retraced. Remotely update your copies. But it is harder to scratch a name out of the the written book of records unnoticed. The mad emperor tried to alter Scripture - but many ink on paper copies scattered throughout the empire retained the memory of the truth, unsullied by the mad emperor's heresies. The Order of Saint Tetrimon was able to undo his alterations because of that.