Interview with lord Gaven Lok'ri, part 1

The first lord I ever met, the flamboyant Aldrith Shutaq Newelle, told me that if anyone in PIE could help my quest, it would be Gaven Lok'ri, Chapter Master of the Excubitoris chapter on Oris.
 
I've been wanting to meet lord Gaven Lok'ri ever since. But, it's like wanting to meet some cluster-famous celebrity: no matter how often you write them, it usually stays a dream. However, Lunarisse Aspenstar interceded on my behalf with the Excubitoris chapter, and lo! His lordship agreed to meet me.
 
So it was in great anticipation and with great trepidation that I went to Oris. I took a shuttle to the Chapter house, located on a small estate overlooking the Lok'ri holding. The panoramic view of the lower lands and the inner sea is absolutely magnificent, and an ancient chapel dedicated to Saint Junip completes that picturesque view. At least, if one doesn’t look too much to the side, to the many modern military facilities dotting the estate. The security is in tune with that Sarumite militarism: the guards at the checkpoints are even more paranoid than in Mehatoor.

After being scanned and probed and background checked as if I was Shakor himself, I waited for a while on a bench, enjoying the view as I mentally blotted out the bunkers. I was joined a little later by my guardian Sefrim, now my directrix. She was dressed magnificently in a formal black and gold Amarr dress, and I immediately regretted not having ironed my habit before this visit.

We were led to the Arjam library, which houses a new museum of Dark Age Matari culture. Lord Aldrith Shutaq Newelle was there too, as well as Lord Utari Onzo. It was a pleasure to see these familiar faces.

Ah that museum is a miracle! Its halls show the results of a thousand years of exploration and collection by famous archeologist Holders. Private collections of ancient artifacts obtained from the most ancient burial sites and from famous temples of worship. Beautiful statuettes and carvings saved from the savagery of clan warfare and neglect. These marbles and weapons and scrolls and ornaments, they tell the real story of the Matari people! They expose the falsity of the recently constructed fiction that the rebels concocted with the help of the Federation in a vain attempt of nation-building and of uniting their clans.

I’m glad these objects are taken care of in such a professional manner. And, I can see why this museum cannot be readily visited by any tourist unscreened and unchecked. Knowledge of what is here would likely cause a riot in Pator. They would want it back to put it in some ill-conceived display where the artifacts would decay. Or, they might want to destroy them to cover up the truth and protect the fiction of their unity.

I will continue my report tomorrow – for today I am too full of impressions and excitement to write down all that I learnt from lord Lok’ri accurately.

Music 101

I have lived for sixty years in a monastery. There, one's duties are programmed for every waking moment. They are clear and consistent and unchanging. Everything is well ordered including how to address the other brothers. 

 

Now, out in the world, I find it very hard to adjust to the complexities of social interactions, and I find that many things have changed since Heideran's time. My social skills have atrophied. When I mentioned this to Arsia Elkin she answered "you'll make a fine capsuleer then." I'm not sure what she meant, but then again she turned her back on the Empire, so some degree of nonsense is to be expected.

Luckily, I found unexpected help in Ishta Maleto. She has proposed to acquaint me with contemporary music, so I would feel more at ease visiting the bar at Gottin's Lamp, or attending receptions.

 

Yesterday, I took her up on her offer. Alas! These lessons are hard on the soul. 

 

One of the "songs" consists of a man (calling himself "lamb of God") screaming in a voice distorted by pain. True, if he would not scream, he would not be heard above the background noise. Ishta assured me I was not listening to a record of a man being tortured. I'm not completely convinced. I think he's having sulfuric acid poured down his throat. Most of the second half of the song is taken up with the man screaming out "walk with me in hell" repeatedly as his vocal chords dissolve. This is apparently a Gallente thing.

 

The other songs were good. Or let's say, better. There was a song called "slow your roll", and Ishta explained to me what it meant. It's a call to stop using frentix before it's too late and you overdose. Oh and there was a Minmatar poet - I liked his song even though did not really sing but rhythmically recited his poem about standing up against those that want to pull him down. 

 

I in turn let her listen to choral music by the Polfaly polyphonic convent, but she was not particularly impressed I think.

Her songs all somehow help Ishta either to deal with her past, or to express her identity. They are full of energy, power and not just a little bit of anger. But I don't think I'll hear them soon at Gottin's lamp bar.

Pentagram constellations

Do you know the feeling, when you are searching for a name or a word, and it is on the tip of your tongue but you just cannot find it? You've enunciated the word many times before, but just at that moment it eludes you, and your mind cannot rest until you have remembered it?

 

I sometimes have a similar feeling when I pursue an investigation. My subconscious has made a connection but it is not yet in the spotlight of my conscious mind. Yet I can feel that there is something bothering me, something rattling around in my mind escaping me. Even though usually it is not anything of great importance, it bugs me for days. I've been having this feeling for a couple of days now, and knew it was linked to the gate network, but it took me until today to hatch my mental egg. 

 

I think I know why the Takmahl settled in Araz.

 

Or at least, I have a theory: they settled in a pentagram constellation. The five stars central to their empire -Aphi, Nidupad, Garisas, Chanoun and Jakri- for a little cluster separated from the other stars, and each one of those five is connected to the other four:

 

They form a pentagram - a symbol of protection that appears in many cultures. In fact, it appears in the logo of the "protectors", Concord, DED and the Secure Commerce Commission. It is also found in the shapes of the head of Takmahl deities as can be seen from the statues depicting them. Just as the triangles matter to the Triglavians, I believe the pentagram mattered as a symbol for the Takmahl.

 

Pentagram constellations are exceedingly rare. They are a waste of resources in a race to expand the empire when every link you lay is costly. I suspect the Talocan forged this icon in space, just as they forged the labyrinth in Aphi.

In fact, there is only one other pentagram constellation in our cluster. It is in the Deklein region and consists of the systems XCBK-X, GYS5-26, 9CK-KZ, VPLL-N, 4N-BUI. This is fought over between the “Sylvanas Super Mercenary” coalition and the "Federation of Respect Honor Passion" alliance at the moment.

 

However, Deklein would have been technologically out of reach for groups fleeing Amarr two thousand years ago. If they sent out a cryoship to that remote location, it would probably still be underway or may have arrived just a few centuries ago. So, at one point, I would like to investigate these systems and may need to find how I can bribe the warlords so they grant me passage through their dominion.

Networks

The mathematical characteristics of networks, such as the degree of clustering or the amount of nodes with a certain number links, can indeed tell you how it the network was grown. 

An example of this are the so-called "scale-free" networks, that have a few well connected hubs and a large amount of nodes with few links. They typically grow by attaching a new node preferentially to nodes that already have many links. Our jump gate network has some of these properties, but cannot be really classified as a scale-free network. It also has characteristics of a "dendritic" network, where new links are cast out to explore a vaster amount of space. But again, it is not purely of this form. My mathematician friend confirms that the most likely way that the stargate network formed is by exploration that occasionally stumbled on highly connected remnants of pre-existing links. 

So, highly connected clusters far away from the Empire's home worlds, and far away from economic hubs, should be a good indication of homeworlds for ancient cultures.

I was also told that there are many different measures by which to judge the strategic importance of a node (or a system in our case). It's not always the node with the most links that is the more imporant. Other so-called "measures of node centrality" may apply such as how often a certain node lies on the shortest route between any two other random nodes. It would be interesting to find out which of the many measures of centrality would explain why Jita and Dodoxie grew to some importance in trading. 

Of course, why Amarr is important and always will be requires no explanation.

The jump gate network

To create the very first jump gate connection, between Amarr and Hedion, took just over fifty years.

 

Gates are connected twins, and after one is installed in a system, our ancestors needed to travel by cryoship to the system where they wanted to make the other part of the pair. This costs considerable effort and time, and crews willing to devote their lives and that of their children to the task. Cryoship technology improved, but more than roughly 10-15% of light speed is not achievable. Also the production of gates takes a lot of resources and devotion - even after our forebears arrived in Hedion, it took them two years of dedicated work before they could send a signal back.

 

Keep the tremendous effort needed in establishing gates in mind, and cast a look at the gate link network. It looks to me tremendously inefficient with many redundant links. The same number of nodes (stars) could be much more efficiently connected - with less links - while still keeping overall travel time small. Mathematicians love this kind of optimization problems.

So, I think that the reason why we have our current set of links (barring of course Pochven) is because there was a mix of links established by the Empires, and links that were still present. Just as we discoved the first (unpaired) gate in our system, I surmise that we must have discovered also paired remnants, maybe leftovers from the Talocan, these master spacetime weavers.

While in the Amarr system, I am also meeting with some mathematician friends of mine, to see what their "network theory" has to say on the matter.

Relic sites

As I traveled to Oris, I scanned down and hacked some relic sites along the way. The exercise went well. I was able to hack into these relic sites without too much trouble. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing but some old cables and wiring left. Nothing that reveals the habits of ancient cultures. 

I was about to throw the junk out of the airlock when mr. Gelfanth, my chief engineer on the Indagatrix, told me these things fetch a nice price on the markets. So, it seems there is another way, besides project Discovery, to earn ISK without killing anyone. And this way, I may even stumble on some lost knowlegde of our glorious past!

Two worries

Two things to be nervous about.

First, Lunarisse has offered to introduce me to Lord Lok'ri, the theologian that I have cited before. Apparently, he also holds a certain fame as a capsuleer in PIE and he is Chapter Master of that noble order. I will go to Oris, to the Excubitoris Chapter house, in the hope to meet him through the kind intercession of the Directrix. I am feverishly sorting and re-ordering all the questions I want to pose to Lord Lok'ri, never reaching consensus with myself as to what to ask precisely. I'm afraid that at the very meeting I will just freeze - this is why I must prepare.

The trip to Oris will also be a good occasion to try out the upgrades of the Indigatrix. I want to try finding relic sites with its upgraded sensors and scan probes.

 

Second, the girl Ishta has offered to educate me about contemporary music. I am eager to learn about the temporal world and society I now find myself in, and I am grateful for the offer. Ishta seems quite comfortable navigating the modern world - maybe a tad too comfortable. I just hope her music choices won't be too... Gallente.

Meditation on sin and redemption

I came upon a beautiful meditation on sin and redemption, by Nicoletta Mithra. I found it very inspiring, so I am noting it down here to find it more easily:

If sin consists in hurting oneself, by ignoring God, then, really, the damnation is not consequence of sinful action. Sinful action already is damnation brought onto us by ourselves. What could be more immense, what could be more swift and decisive? And if we go on this path of sin, then it will eventually our end. Tolerance is limited.

On the other hand, there is the Scriptural promise of Reclaiming and redemption. Similar to damation comes salvation. It’s not the reward for aligning yourself with God: Salvation consists in being aligned with God. Redemption, then, is re-alignment with God and it is always open, if even incrementally, as long as we can do just that.

The Index

I am settling in a bit, in the new role of librarian. It is a beautiful library, but there is some work to do. Every year, the Theology Council's sacred congregation of the index publishes the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, also known as the red book because long ago it used to have a red cover. By now the list is too long to fit in a paper book, and it is only available on datapad, but it kept that nickname.

 

The Index lists the publications that are deemed heretical or unsuitable for the faithful to read without guidance and help from a theologian or clergy member. Index YC123 is out, it is updated yearly. Most notably, this year's Index adds to the list all volumes published in the previous year about Sedevacantism. We don't have these in the library. But nevertheless there are some other books that need to be purged. I am mostly concerned about some lewd titles that appear to be lent out regularly.

 

I feel safe and at peace between books, and I always feel unhappy when I have to get rid of books. I wonder if there is a separate, closed off section of the library that can be used to store the prohibited books so they can be consulted under strict guidance, or if I should just dispose of them... Well, certainly the world will not suffer a great loss if we incinerate "fifty games you can play with your pussy", which -as the Theology Council recently found out- is not about cats at all.

Generational Inherited Sin

I've spent the day contemplating my new status as a member of a corporation. On the one hand, it means giving up some independence, but on the other hand it means finding an anchor, and fellowship. I miss my brothers at the monastery - they were a true family to me. Maybe it is this longing which drove me to apply.

 

The interview was interesting, even if it took place in a bar. It had been a long time since I felt I had a good discussion on theological matters!

 

I learned about a recent school of thought that says slavery is meant as a penance for sins, a kind of transaction with God. This theory has an obvious difficulty: how can newborn babes have sinned?  And yet, they are born in slavery. To accommodate for this tension, one must believe in the inheritance of sin - like a debt inherited from your parents that you would have to continue repaying. 

 

But then another question arises: if the word of God was never brought to the barbarians, how could they sin against it? Should one not knowingly go against the word of God for it to be a true mortal sin? This is how I would interpret Missions 5:14,

"Which test reveals more of the soul, the test that a man will take to prove his faith, or the test that finds the man who believed his faith already proven? If you know this answer, then you also know which of these challenges bear the greatest penalty for failure. The gates of paradise will open for you one time only; woe to the soul who dares to knock twice."

It is also in the name we give to the taking of slaves: it is not called the Reconciliation (after penance), but the Reclaiming. To reclaim is to bring what fell out of the light and was lost in the dark night of ignorance, back into the fold by bringing to it the word of God, as is stated Book of Reclaiming 4:45,

"So the Lord sent forth the Chosen,
to bring forth the light of faith
And those who embrace his love
Shall be saved by his grace"

Reclaiming is lighting the other's extinguished candle, or giving them one, in the analogy I described for the faith a couple of days ago. That newborn flame requires a lot of care before it can burn brightly on its own, and for that education and training is needed. That is very different from receiving payment.

Gaven Lok'ri of PIE has written about it in a much more eloquent way than I could. For him the idea of generational inherited sin was part of Kernherism. I would argue that more recently and more clearly it can be linked to Sedevacantism.

 

Joining a corporation

 I took the step. 

 

"Surround yourself with the faithful, Stand together, for there is no strength like it under the heavens."
- The Scriptures, Book of Missions 71:21

 

I applied for the job of librarian at Khimi Harar's library in Mehatoor, and in doing so I also chose to become a member of that corporation. There was an intake interview in... the bar. An odd place to hold an interview. I had expected a formal office, and not a drinking den with comfortable plush cushions and all sorts of luxury. And a bunch of other capsuleers who pretend to do their business but have ears as big as soup plates to listen in. I was also suprised to see a PIE member in their bar, given the recent disagreements between these two societies...

I think I made the right decision. We will see, if I am forced to go against my holy vows, I can always resign and seek my fortune elsewhere. But for now, I can see no better place for an Amarrian scholar to find like-minded souls.

Back at the library

I have returned to Mehatoor, after a detour to shop for parts for the Indigatrix. She is now completely upgraded, with much improved capacity to scan for anomalies and hack relic sites.

 

Time to take stock. I've followed the Ilash Toth lead to New Eden, and met the Goners. I learned about a science expedition of the Republic, which is something I must investigate further. I also confirmed that the gate is indeed not an object in the New Eden system, to all likelihood.

 

Now, I will turn back to the second theory that I am looking into: the Takmahl. I left this line of research aside for a while, as I was in New Eden, and now I will return to it. I will begin with making contact with the Arataka Research Consortium and in parallel try to learn about cryoships.

In transit

I left a clone and the Ratakh Hubrau in New Eden. I have a feeling the Gate will call me back to her erelong. The exploration vessel will come in handy then.

As I make my way back to Mehatoor, I feel like a northerner descending from the desolate polar region to the inhabited world. Long ago, the people from the polar region of Amarr used to trade in bear skins and various other warm furs. I did not encounter polar fauna, but I trade in ship skins. It seems that there is not just the cash payoff from project discovery, but you also get some vanity items as rewards in kind, like clothing and a bunch of these "skins". And, it also seems that capsuleers pay hard cash for these items. Not all, some can't be traded for a quafe, while others -probably for more rare ships- fetch a handsome price.

 

With the funds, I plan to upgrade the good old Indigatrix. I will strip it bare to reuse the modules, and replace the hull by an Anathema class hull that should become even more useful as I finalize covert ops cloaking.

Meditation on the meaning of scripture

God gives us three gifts, as we come into this world. Three gifts to help us journey from our origin, through the dangerous dark cold universe, towards our end.

The first gift is a blanket called love. You can wrap this blanket around yourself, to keep you warm.

The second gift is a staff called hope. You can lean on it, you pull yourself up out of lethargy with it, and it helps you to move forward.

The third gift is a tiny flame called faith. You hold it in the palm of our hand, and it needs to be tended to and to be nurtured. Its light will show you the way through the darkness.

The most important message of scripture is that these gifts are not meant just for you, they are meant to be shared.

Wrap your blanket around others, and it more than adds the warmth of the other to yours. If you only wrap it around yourself, the cold will creep up through its folds.

Extend the staff to others, to pull them up. It is more than twice as hard to break two joined sticks than one. But, if you hold the staff close to your chest it will be useless.

Share your flame and light the extinguished candle in the hand of another, and the path will be illuminated more than twice as brightly. If you would close your hand in an attempt to keep the flame for yourself, it will be extinguished. 

This, to me, is what our Amarr scripture tries to tell us. It is what I try to live up to.

The rise and fall of the Goners

Finally, my expedition to New Eden can draw to a close. Through the sparse interactions with the Goners and their former associates, and through a study of their manuscripts, I can now form myself a more or less accurate and complete picture of their history.

Brother Sarachem indeed wrote the main scripture that started the Goner movement. He received his revelations in a vision and wrote it down while he was working at Hedion University. It is a rather apocalyptic vision, those that use violence in New Eden will be struck down, and those that reject it will be saved and allowed to return to Mother Earth, guided by Goner Father who is an earthling that gave Amarr its technology.

 

His manuscripts were found to be heretical, and soon enough Sarachem found himself dismissed from his position at Hedion. Since he did not publicly recant, he was banned and exiled from Amarr. An inquisitor initially came after him, but Sarachem was deemed rather harmless, and other pressing matters at the time took precedence for the Theology Council Tribunal. So, after that initial interest, the council seems to have altogether forgotten about him, or chose simply to ignore him.

He fled to New Eden, the only logical place for him to go, as his revelation is about Mother Earth. This is a planet as well as a mythical protector goddess. The way to reach her and find redemption is to go through Eve gate – and use the “anticipator” key to open it. This key is stored at a hidden location somewhere in a Jove system with dense asteroid belts. The mythical Goner Father, an immortal person born on Mother Earth, is supposed to have access to it, and to use it occasionally.

Others joined Sarachem in exile, like Father Sartorius, the self-styled "Mentor of Eve constellation". Through preaching, their movement grew and soon they had a sizeable congregation. In addition to the pilgrimage to the gate, the Goners introduced a pilgrimage in nullsec in which the pilgrim must circle all the way around Empire space. During the pilgrimage around the rim of the cluster the Goners will take confessions of any nullsec passerby who talks to them. From this they received more donations and outside help, and with that influx of ISK a golden age began.

With the donations they constructed a home, a space station that was to be their Temple. To manage it, they started associate corporations for lay sympathizers. That way, they could continue to concentrate on prayer and preaching, while their lay corporations would handle worldly affairs for them. But, not all those that enlisted were as pure of spirit as the Goner monks. They started to accumulate wealth, used the station to trade in all sort of contraband. They grew greedy. They made enemies.

At some point, the Goner monks were betrayed and attacked. They cast out the traitors, but due to their vow, the monks could not fight. Luckily many loyal sympathizers still helped them, and in a fierce and valiant battle they were able to drive back the unholy horde that had laid siege to their home. However, their resources were rapidly depleted in comparison to the war coffers of the enemies aligned against them. They had won a battle, but not the war.

Their enemies regrouped and struck again. This time, their Temple was destroyed. Dejected, many left their congregation and joined other alliances, such as Red Alliance. Other monks remained in the station as fire blasted through it, and they disappeared into oblivion along with their burning Temple. Those that remained alive continue the pilgrimages to do penance for mankind. My impression is that they mainly do penance now for the acts of their apostate associates.

As for my own quest: they do believe that the ancient relics are not lost, and that the crown could have given Toth the insight to go to Mother earth. However, they could not offer evidence of that.

 

I'll wrap up my expedition and in a couple of days move back to the 24th Imperial Crusade station in Mehatoor and its very comfortable library.

Goner Apostates

I am slowly getting the full picture on the Goners, but they remain quite reluctant with information.

The Inquisitor in me spoke up: if the subject is immune to interrogation, interrogate the loved ones (okay for the original quote your have to replace "interrogate" by "torture"). The Goners also have apostates. Capsuleers that were part of their organisation, intimately, and that left them to pursue wealth. I identified several former high-ranking members that were associates to the most imporant Goners. Foremost among them is Loana en Tevaline, now member of the Red Alliance. I will contact her to complete my history of the Goners.

Today, I also talked once again to Kitteh. She has docking rights in the SFRIM station. But she is looking for purpose in her life, completely fed up with what she did - piracy. She says she never killed for ISK, but she feels really bad about herself, she also flies to the Gate just to calm her mind these days. I talked to her and I think she needed someone who listened. We also talked about the faith, I explained her about what I was doing, she seemed interested, she never considered research and archeology. I offered to intercede with Aspenstar to recommend her, I think if she could join an honest corporation it would help her to do things beyond piracy, and maybe to clear her name at least with our Empire. She bailed. I will try again.

Barbarians at the Gate

When the Goners were at the height of their fame a bit less than a decade ago, they had also quite some adepts in the Republic. Their stories reached the ears of the Republic's admiralty, and in time the brass got convinced that Eve Gate was an important strategic goal. The secrecy of the Servant Sisters only strengthened this conviction. An added bonus for them would be to find Toth's expedition and loot Ametat and Avetat. I can only imagine how they would gloat if they would find it. How they would put it to use diplomatically or maybe desecrate these relics to sap our morale. I reassure myself that God would not allow that.

Anyway,  they decided to send a exploration fleet. Not just a couple of cloaky frigates, though! No, none less than the fourth science fleet of the Minmatar Republic! A capital fleet, with three Nidhoggurs and a Ragnarok as flagship, accompanied by Tempest battleships and frigate squadrons. Footage of this is still around, as well as some stills such as the figure below.

Their plan was to use the position of the Goners to go as close as they could to the Gate by conventional means. The ships had been fitted with experimental technology, as regular warp drives cannot find an endpoint to latch on. I guess this is what professor Moriarty also tries to develop. Indeed, the experimental warp drives on these ships would not require an end point to go to warp.

In typical Minmatar impulsive fashion, these prototype warp drives hadn't been extensively tested, and would just be field-tested on the first mission. At first, things went well, they cynoed in to New Eden and caught up with the Goners. But then, the experiment went wrong: the warp drives malfunctioned due interference with the radiation from the gate. This resulted in the engines blowing up soon after... In the explosion, the entire exploratory fleet was lost.

This was such a costly fiasco that no other fleets followed. The other empires somehow got news of this, and also decided they didn't want to bother with the New Eden system - to great relief of the Sisters. And the Goners? They chalked it up to a divine intervention of Goner Father, punishing the Minmatar fleet because it came with weapons primed.

Reading the Goner's writings

I am spending more time flying with the Goners. Yesterday, there were two of them at the same time in the system. I am learning more about them, but information is only obtained piecemeal.

I  have also resumed my reading of their writings. There are some really interesting historical notes in early works. Unfortunately, some of the latter tomes are about as exciting to read as a market ticker tape. And, for some other of these newer books, I suspect some authors of being under the influence of very psychoactive mushrooms. Some writings also contain subtly treasonous parts - as an example I quote a part on the return of Empress Jamyl: "But it is good in you that you hate the Empress's deeds, which I also hate."

Also professor Moriarty is still around. We discussed the parallax measurements, and he showed me that even though the gate itself is far away, the whisps and other visual effects we see are actually generated just nearby our ship. The particles flowing from the gate cause probably visual some interference in the viewscreen. He also proudly demonstrated his "blink" manoeuver again, without giving technical details.

Journeying with Sarachem

Today, I flew alongside Goner Sarachem for a long while. I noticed how several capsuleers tried to woo him in the communications channel. Ladies of a very dubious allure logged in to the Goner Temple channel, but Goner Sarachem remained impervious to the temptations they offered.

He reminds of the desert fathers who went out alone into the desolate sands and sought God in the total solitude between dunes and sky. An ascetic life, a hermit's life. After much fasting and deprivation, demons started to appear to them. These demons took the form of tasty food or of wise men sowing doubts, or monsters inciting fear, or harlots tempting them with lewd thoughts and carnal feelings. The demons offered the fathers everything from simple water to wealth or sex if they would forsake the hermit's life. But the desert fathers took dead wood and made it into a club, and they took the thorny desert shrubs and wound it around the club and with it they beat back the demons of temptation.

Do I appear like a demon to Sarachem?

A gift from heaven

A most remarkable thing happened to me today: God smiled on my efforts and sent me help.

I was doing some more experiments close to the New Eden sun, laying down bookmarks, when my combat probes picked up another ship. An Astero frigate, a vessel type of the Sister's design, meant for exploration but capable of battle.

I immediately cloaked up, fearing White Sky thugs or similar miscreants. But to my surprise I was alone in local, and the only probes around were mine. I scanned down the Astero's location.

I mustered my courage, and warped to the ship at some distance, ready to re-warp away immediately should an attack ensue. But, the Astero just hung there, in space, no sign of life. I tried hailing it, but there was no response. The ship did not appear damaged, just powered down. My own ship's AI offered the option to board the ship, a menu item I had never seen before alongside orbit and approach... 

 

Maybe the Sisters were in danger. Had the ship lost power somehow? I boarded the vessel. It is a weird experience to change ship outside of a station. As my pod plugged in to the Astero's systems I could immediately see that there was no sign of life on the ship. Also, no sign of struggle or battle. For some unknown reason, the ship had just been abandoned in all haste and left in space in a fully equipped state.

It took a bit of time to get the engines up and running, and I had to offline several systems that I cannot use yet, such as the covert ops cloak. I brought the ship as well as my own ship back to the Farthest Shore, happy I was able to dock both up. I was also glad no malevolent capsuleer had destroyed the abandoned frigate before I found it.

The maintenance and repair crew at Farthest Shore tell me it will be fully operational soon. This is a far more advanced exploration vessel than what I am flying now, with expensive modules. In fact, it would be quite unaffordable to me at the moment: I would have to complete nearly 1500 flow cytometry analyses in project Discovery to pay for it.

 

I will wait for a couple of days in system to see if someone or some corporation turns up to look for their vessel. If no-one does, I will accept it as a gift from God, as encouragement and help for my quest. I will then name the vessel Ratakh Hubrau, the frigate from heaven.