Missionary Missive

As I reconnected to LUMEN's mail servers on my way back to Mehatoor, a bunch of messages flooded my mailbox. Mail always piles up so fast! 

I skimmed through and disregarded most messages, but I was happily surprised to see a letter from brother Hugo. We met during the transition of St. Vasrayi's relic to the chapel in Seclusion, and struck up a friendship. Seeing an opportunity to bring the Faith to new worlds, brother Hugo and fifteen missionary companions boarded one of the Deep Space Transports in Publius' wormhole colonization fleet.

He writes me that the fleet finally has arrived in a hospitable system, with no less than four temperate worlds orbiting a yellow-orange main sequence star. They decided that it was a good place to settle. Publius and his fellow adventurers have baptized this system "Epikouria". 

They have begun deploying in orbit of Epikouria IX, the outermost planet. Despite its distance to the star, it is one of the four temperate worlds. Nevertheless, it remains a cold world: a substantial portion of its land mass is covered in snow or ice during the current part of its orbit. Brother Hugo included a picture of the world in his letter, taken from the station's observation deck:

Brother Hugo writes that there is a civilization down below on IX. Publius' associates found that most worlds in Epikouria already have some inhabitants, capable of sending out probes to see who has appeared in their system. The inhabitants have been very reluctant to make contact - they seem not to trust outsiders easily, especially outsiders that fly Imperial battleships. 

Orbital observation has detected two separate settlements on IX. One is in a rather arid part near the equator, and the other, larger, is on an island. The population is estimated (again, from satellite observation) to run in the tens of thousands.

Brother Hugo and his companions took a shuttle down planetside, to the island city, bringing scripture and some material to build a mission church. They were pelted with overripe fruit and chased away. Not that they met savages: these people were modern, and clearly belonged to the various cultures of our own cluster. They must have come here on a previous wave of colonization of Anoikis. Either by their own volition, or by lack of interstellar ships, or perhaps after a raid, they remain severed from their Empires.

For the moment, Publius and his new colonists do not seem to be preoccupied by these inhabitants, and mostly ignore them, preferring to live in orbit. Isidorus and others have been putting down mineral extraction facilities in remote parts of most planets, and are starting to harvest planetary resources. I do hope there will be no clashes, and I will pray that brother Hugo receives a better reception on his next visit.

Vehicle rental reviews

The logical next step for my investigation is to reposition the station scanners to find signatures in the biosphere. Signatures that point to objects that are not as young as the vegetation, yet either younger (Tetrimon) or much older (relics) than the rest of the station. There is no absolute certainty that this will work, given the small size the relics may be, but it is not unrealistic and worth a try. 

Unfortunately, the scanner that we had set up inside the biosphere is still not functioning. My tech guru was not able to get it to work, but he's more familiar with range-finding and pinpointing scanners that work on a solar system scale. In addition, the vehicle that we used to transport it - we had parked it next to the deployed scanner - also does not work any more.

In retrospect, I should not have used 1-ISK-RENTALS to rent planetary vehicles. They did have a 4-star review on galnet, but now that I looked again to find out how to contact them, I see that there was only one review. Probably from the owners. And even they did not want to give 5 stars. 

I called them from the Indagatrix, and a woman introducing herself as Kelly told me that there is no breakdown insurance, and also no roadside assistance. Especially when vehicles break down in abandoned forbidden cities floating in Blood Raider infested space, you're on your own. Actually they do not have it even if you drive around in Dam-Torsad! I will have to pay for a new vehicle if I do not bring it back.

This is not a problem for a capsuleer wallet. But I felt I should add something to the reviews for future clients. I do not want to be mean, so I went for 3 stars, and wrote "Had some problem with one of their vehicles breaking down, while parked. Note that you should have your own roadside assistance." 

I considered whether this was maybe a bit too harsh, and also I did not want to bring the lady on call in trouble, so I added (stretching the truth a little bit) "Kelly on the info line was very helpful."

I am heading back for a brief visit to Mehatoor to get a new scanner and some vehicles to move them.

Rewilding

The Tetrimon Order mostly used this place as barracks it seems. I do not think they hid any important relic here. It was merely a conveniently located site in the station. 

Before the Tetrimon turned this facility into their barracks, I think this was a biology or biochemistry lab related to the management of the agricultural biosphere. There is no functioning lab equipment remaining, but we did manage to salvage some old data generated by monitoring devices in the biosphere. It tells the story of how it evolved after the station was abandoned.

The biosphere is a large patch of land, divided in squares of roughly 4 square kilometers. These are laid out in an 8 by 8 chessboard pattern, indicated by coordinates A-H and 1-8. The square patches were alternating agricultural land and wildland. Our entrance is at E1, in the middle of one edge.

When power was diverted to other systems, the solar energy input turned out to be not enough and the biosphere cooled. Perhaps Mezagorm was designed to be closer to the star, or perhaps the design did not live up to specs. Also, biospheres are known to be fickle and liable to instabilities.

It cooled, not to the point of freezing, but reaching a thermal equilibrium cooler than before. Beans and tomatoes stopped setting fruit, and pollinators declined and essentially disappeared. Then the warm-soil bacteria slowed down, reducing nitrogen mineralization. Rye took over from wheat, and conifers started to thrive. At some point when that seemed to settle into a new equilibrium, it appears that the monitoring devices malfunctioned all one by one in a relatively short time span.

Another piece of the puzzle

Over the last couple of days, we have explored the remains of the Tetrimon garrison stationed in the ruins of Mezagorm. It was as I feared: there is nothing of any value left. Broken utensils and machinery, bunk beds, emblems, and other objects indeed show that the Tetrimon Order was here for an extended period of time. 

More recent objects point to at least one team of looters that came after the Tetrimon left: Blood Raiders. We have identified remnants of their food supplies, in particular left-over vials of their blood drinks. This seems to confirm my hunch that they are still from time to time sending raiding parties, hoping to find interesting loot.

We have managed to retrieve some data from the old mainframes in the facility. The data represents logs by the garrison. They are either unreadable or trivial day-to-day activity logs. For example there is a complete record of how many eggs the chickens have been laying every day. They must have been keeping a chicken coop for some reason, in a nearby part of the biosphere. 

Still, the egg records were useful: what struck me is that they used the exact same idiom to denote the biosphere as what is used to denote the "guarded gardens" in the riddle that I found in the restored library of Baron Redwolfe's order. As you will recall, it read:

In the guarded gardens of
the fallen temple of pride,
at the Dark King's bishop,
find the stench of sin.

So, the first two lines seem to be deciphered now: they do refer to this biosphere where we lost the mapping drone. That drone is still not found. Now also the long-range scanner that we have deployed there has stopped working. Not that we need it, it has served its purpose, but I might have to pay the warranty upon returning it, unless we can fix it.

While one of the technicians from my crew works on that, I am investigating even older logs that we retrieved, apparently from the biochemists working here when this was still a facility, probably overseeing the biosphere.

Located

We have found the location of the garrison! Not long after the radio-isotope long range scanner was installed, it read a huge signal, and pointed us to a biochemistry research facility at the edge of the ecosphere hangar, off the main passage connecting it to the Grand Hall. 

In retrospect, it is an logical spot to stay in this abandoned city. It is easily accessible from the Grand Hall where you can land your ship, and it is next to a source of food and water, making it rather autonomous for a long time. Moreover, the forested area provides a good space to have a relaxing walk, or exercise a bit. And, being a research facility, it is easy to seal it off or guard its entrances.

The entrance has been forced open, so we have not been the first visitors after the Tetrimon left from their garrison. Perhaps Sansha or Blood Raiders? They are seen often enough outside Mezagorm, even last week. 

A cautious first look reveals that the place has indeed been thoroughly ransacked. We'll continue to explore it more systematically tomorrow, but it is very disappointing, as probably we will not find much of value. 

Biosphere

The missing mapping drone caused a lot of speculation among the crew. Possibilities were debated, such as a faulty battery or a defect in the communication array. Of course, the location where it went missing was the cause of speculation too. The most popular hypothesis was that it had found a large fleet hangar, perhaps with some passive jamming equipment still active.

Our assumption turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

When we went up to that location, we found a forest. Pine, birch, spruce and fir trees, under a dome of filtered sunlight. We could even hear some animals making sort of squeaking sounds. We have not found the mapping drone, but it is not designed to map out a forest, so I am not surprised it malfunctioned.

This turns out to be an artificial closed ecosystem, that has been abandoned for centuries. Energy input does not come from power generated inside Mezagorm - that has long ceased to function - but from the sunlight collected and spectrally filtered by the dome above, acting as a one-way mirror letting the sunlight in but trapping the infrared radiation. Part of the solar energy is used to run very basic systems, but mostly the whole ecosystem is self-contained, passive, and recycles its own materials.

At one point this must have been a farming ecosystem; there is still a lot of rye growing in open patches and clearances. This would have provided Mezagorm with food even when systems would fail or power  would needed to be diverted for defensive systems. Perhaps the mad Emperor was already taking into account a possible attack or siege.

We repositioned the long-range scanner, so that we can continue the search for the location of the Tetrimon garrison. Once it is set up and triangulating, we will start looking for the mapping drone and exploring the forest a bit.

Mapping Mezagorm

The remote scanners are pointing us towards one of the side-structures of Mezagorm. The whole station is designed as a fractal of ever smaller outer circles surrounding inner circles. In order to close in on the exact location of the old Order of Tetrimon camp, we need to move one of the scanners more towards the outside.

This is difficult since there are no maps of Mezagorm - at least not publicly available, even for scholarly research. So, we do not know how to navigate this cursed city.

I did bring 3D tunnel-mapping drones to help us with that. These are really neat, tiny flying devices with advanced gyroscopes that continuously map their surroundings and keep track of their position and orientation. You let them loose and they will map out large areas of tunnels. 

They are often used in speleology but work fine on abandoned stations too. They can create detailed maps of even the most intricate three-dimensional labyrinths. It just takes them a lot of time, since they have to visit every tunnel.

One of these mapper drones entered a surprisingly large space - the outer walls were too far off for its rangefinder. It did start going around the edge of that space, when suddenly its signal got cut off. 

As this is also roughly in the direction where we would like to reposition the scanner, I am taking a team out to go see this space and get our drone back.

Setting up the expedition

Today the Sansha squad was not present in Shastal, at least not in the neighborhood of Mezagorm. 

The Indagatrix descended into the immense and abandoned Grand Hall of the megalopolis-station. It is always a sight to behold, especially without the light-enhancement of a neocom. First one's eyes have to get used to the darkness, as Shastal star's light only illuminates the top part near the entrance to the vast enclosure. As the shades start to take form in the gloomy darkness, the sense of cursedness of this place grows.

There was no luxury yacht at the landing pad of Galactic Tours. I do not know their schedule this summer  and perhaps there is still one cruise on the way. So I chose a different site to land, one closer to the part where my previous investigations seemed to point to. 

With the crew I spent most of the day setting up a base camp, using some of the power generators that we brought along. We rebooted life support in one of the smaller buildings at the edge of the Grand Hall, a place that seems to be on an intersection of roads inside the station. Tomorrow, we will start up the remote radio-isotope fingerprinting scanners and start triangulation.

During our work, Mr. Firth was suddenly called back to Mehatoor by his superiors for some sort of Sedevacantist emergency. I had to interrupt work to drop him off at the 24th Imperial Crusade station in neighboring Dihra. It is quite uncharacteristic of my political officer to leave me and the crew to do exploration alone. He seemed more than a little cross when he left and did not speak to me during our trip. It is understandable, as he will miss all the archaeological surveying fun!

Sanshas at Mezagorm

We went to Shastal in a bit of a hurry, only to find Mezagorm camped by some Sansha frigates, just hanging there and not moving. 

At first, I though these ships were abandoned. Perhaps they could be boarded and then captured? But the option to board them was not there, so they must have been powered up and with crew. Mr. Firth, my political officer, did not offer any suggestions, I think he is still worrying about the tabloid thing. In stead, he called in the Sansha asking for Navy support.

The Indagatrix is not fitted for offense, so we are waiting in a privately owned station in the system. 

It seems as if the Mad Emperor's cursed station is always attracting pirates and other evil creatures. Perhaps they too look for ancient technology still hidden in its darkened halls?

Unwanted attention

There was one good piece of news today. My Permit for Archeological Investigation (PAI) for the exploration of Mezagorm came in while I was in Seclusion. So, I have contacted the hangar with the request of loading the station scanning equipment back into the Indagatrix.

There is unfortunately also a bit of bad news. Libby came to see me all upset. She found me just when mr. Firth was bringing me the PAI. 

Apparently, some blurry picture of her appeared in a gutter-press tabloid. 

The cause of this is my excuse for her presence on the Indagatrix, spoken in misplaced jest, saying that she was an apparition. This seems to have been taken up by some clickbait hungry paparazzo. There exists a type of information vulture that likes to loiter in docking bays where capsuleers berth their ships, looking for any morsel or scandal that they can exploit. 

It is best to simply come clean, and confess to the port authorities my mistake of bringing Libby out to Seclusion without having submitted the proper paperwork. 

However, mr. Firth spoke out against that obvious solution, as he fears it will reflect poorly on him. He had a very strong opinion on the matter, and did not shy away from using profanities. He suggests that we depart as soon as possible for the exploration of Mezagorm, and said - I quote - "Get out of here, shut up, and stay there like a hermit for a couple of weeks, and pray that this sh*tstorm blows over."

Youth nowadays has no respect for clergy any more.

Miraculous apparition

Initially, there was a bit of consternation from the clearance officer at Mehatoor docking. According to their records Libby never left the 24th Imperial Crusade station, so how can she disembark from my ship? 

I had forgotten about that.

I tried to handwave it, by saying that miraculous apparitions have been reported pretty much throughout scripture, and are nothing to worry about. The clearance officer was not convinced.

Mr. Firth, who has a natural inclination to reduce the amount of problems, especially if they are potential problems for himself, helped. He correctly pointed out that there are two irregularities that actually cancel out.

Libby is currently in the 24th Imperial Crusade station. If it is not necessary to explain how she could appear on a docking vessel, then it is also not necessary to find out whether errors were made in letting a slave leave the station without her Holder's permission. 

Mr. Firth's argument sounded much more convincing to the clearance officer, and I am sure saved us a lot of unnecessary paperwork and other unpleasantries.

Time and tide and wormholes wait for no man

In the age of sail and oar, ships on a long voyage often had to wait at port for favorable winds and an ebbing tide. The retreating tide offers the benefit of riding the retreating waters. The rising tide, on the other hand, pushes the ships back to port. Similarly, the direction of the winds could make a voyage impossible or perilous. So there was often only a short window of time when ships could set sail - and once it had sailed, there was another wait before other vessels could leave.

For those navigating the depths of Anoikis, there are similar laws. One has to wait for a suitable wormhole connection to appear, one that leads not to far away from the intended destination. The connections seem to be random, which has fed the heresy of worshipping an idol of randomness, called "Bob". 

Some mariners of Anoikis have taken to the practice of "rolling" the wormhole, collapsing a hole by driving a critical amount of mass through it. This is done in the hope that a new wormhole will respawn with a better connection. However, this generally takes a dedicated fleet with battleships and cruiser using Higgs anchors, complemented with scanners and guards. 

The lone traveler has to use what is at hand, or wait. An when a propitious connection appears, there is only short window of time to use it. That is why, in the absence of a rolling fleet for Seclusion, I had to ask Libby to keep her luggage ready so we could leave at a moment's notice. 

We did get a good wormhole connection, and little time to use it before it would collapse. With no idea how long before it would roll to Amarr again, I made haste, and with success: We were able to make use of it, and made our way back to Mehatoor without difficulties.

The temptation of freedom

The fleet's departure was a sight to be behold, viewing it from Pilgrim's Rest. It took three hours before all the ships had left for their voyage. Many people watched it, until the moment the ships were out of viewing range. 

I did not get to see Publius, and to be honest I think it was better that I did not take up any of his precious time with my trifles. 

After the colony fleet left, the activity of the station slowed down again, as if it had to rest after great physical effort. Cleaning up and bringing everything in order seems to have been left for tomorrow, mostly. People went home, or went to a bar to relax. I went to see ms. Yubari's slave, who now calls herself Libby. 

To my surprise, I found her in the midst of unpacking, even though she had not been traveling.

She was reluctant to explain, but I pressed her, and she confessed that she had been tempted to join the colonists and go with them to the fabled Epikouria system, with planets where gold can be dug up with bare hands from the ground. She did not want to join for the promise of wealth. She wanted to go because of the lure of false freedom and a so-called "new life". She had been on the verge of leaving, bags packed and ready, when she decided against it.

She told me that the Voidlanders, the main group of colonists, embrace a pluralist culture without slavery. Even though they tolerate the Amarr customs and abide by our laws, they do not condone slavery, and look down on Holders and the institution. In the part of the station that they used to inhabit, emancipation was the rule, and the law was stretched to a point that any slave coming there would be kept safe and not sent back. Slave-owning Holders were given the cold shoulder.

For someone in Libby's position, facing the dangers of Nauplius, the temptation to run away is understandable, especially with such an easy route. However, it speaks of her strength of character that she did not give in, and after careful deliberation decided to stay. God guided her decision, and gave her strength to withstand the Molok's whispers. 

I told her about ms. Yubari, and her need to have someone to look after her at this stage of her recovery. I also explained that she would not leave Gottin's Lamp, and be safe from Nauplius. To be honest, I am not completely sure about that, since the arch-heretic has been allowed to visit ms. Yubari on occasion, but there is no need to sow doubt now. 

Libby seems to care about ms. Yubari, even if she does not know her all that well. She told me that she owes ms. Yubari a debt of gratitude, and she agrees to return to the Lamp. She worried a bit about her work at St. Vasrayi's chapel, but I could reassure her: now that the colony fleet has left, it will no doubt be less busy and require less personnel.

Departure

Apparently I arrived in Seclusion on one of the busiest days: the main colony fleet is about to leave! 

The hangars today are hubs of frenzied activity. Cargo droids and passenger shuttles move past under a rain of sparks from welders up in scaffolds making last minute hull adjustments and installing cargohold optimization rigs. Berthing hauler ships collide with those tiny BOB drones that buzz around docked ships nowadays in stations. On the ground, hurried people push each other and bump into each other. There are so many people running along in the hangar, that it is almost impossible to get through. 

Out in space, the activity is no less, as various industrial structures are being unanchored, dismantled and  packaged for the journey to the new colony. I had to wait ten minutes before the Indagatrix was allowed to dock! 

Under these conditions there is little chance I will be able to meet Publius. I have delivered his books to his personal hangars in Seclusion, and hope he will find them when he has the time to think about other things than ship manifests and coordinating his wormhole colony's corporation, the Comitia Centuriata.

It is only going to get even more hectic out there in a few hours. LUMEN has called for an armed escort fleet to guard the deep space transports until they make it out to well beyond our port's scan range. Out in Anoikis, there are always security concerns since danger can uncloak at any time. It makes the denizens of the wormhole inclined towards paranoia [1]. 

Meanwhile I went to St. Vasrayi's chapel and to Pilgrim's Rest, a large park in Seclusion's fortizar. It has a dome made out of transparent alloy, allowing for a spectacular view of the fleet that is assembling. I am not the only one here: a small crowd of people, mostly family members either of colonists or hangar workers, is in the park gazing at the spectacle unfolding.

[1] I have been asked by one of the station's officers here to delay any communication of the move until its main part is finished, for operational security, so I will upload this log only late today after the fleet left.

Request from the Medbay

To reach Seclusion, or indeed any destination in Anoikis, one has to consult incomplete and ever-changing starmaps, charting the ephemeral passages between wormhole systems.

Going there is always a somewhat dangerous adventure, so I had the station scanning equipment that was loaded into the Indagatrix's cargo bay for my expedition to Mezagorm unloaded again. 

While I was consulting maps to find today's route to Seclusion, I was contacted by our Medbay. One of the head nurses spoke to me, saying that Ms. Yubari's memory is starting to come back to her and that she would like to see her slave again. She had entrusted the care of that slave to me, and I have brought her to Seclusion for safety after Nauplius made attempts to find the slave. 

It is indeed a safe hiding place (be it that travel to and forth are not that safe). Without secure contacts in LUMEN that grant access to the starmaps showing the way to Seclusion, it is impossible for Nauplius to find her. Now, Ms. Yubari's request to see her slave Libby again comes exactly at the right time, as I am planning to head over there anyway. I do not know how Libby will react to this, but we will see. 

Colonization fleet

I have received interesting news from St. Vasrayi's chapel in Seclusion, LUMEN's foothold in Anoikis. 

The system has seen a strong surge in activity over the last year, under the industrious guidance of Publius Cornelius Felix. This must have been an action that, without knowing, picked up the spirit of the times! Indeed, over the past year also our beloved Empress has expanded the Empire into Anoikis, after the recent merciless Drifter attacks.

Seeing his own efforts mirrored by the Empire has fired up Publius even more, and he forged ahead with his own plans to explore and expand into new wormhole systems. I am afraid his enthusiasm is too big to be contained in Seclusion. 

The acolytes at the chapel tell me that he will set sail to new wormhole horizons with a bunch of colonists. The ship loaders and hangar crews speak of a massive colony fleet of deep space transports and Armageddon battleships preparing for departure. Local youth are whispering of a promised system full of planets resplendent with gold and other precious metals. 

I shall miss Publius, the young explorer with his boundless enthusiasm and his inclination to challenge and change the old ways. I will try to meet him before he leaves: I feel I must warn him against the dangers of Bobism, out there in the Anoikis wildlands. Also, he needs to take some decent books, guides and scripture excerpts with him to stay on the right path. 

Good tidings

Good tidings from the warzone! Bishop Merdaneth announced the reconquest of Auga by the Empire, after a long siege and strategic operations spanning three years. 

The system holds symbolic importance, both for Amarr and for the rebel Minmatar, as it plays an important part in the history of the terrorist group 'the defiants'. They have aided the Elder invasion, an act of aggression that broke all international laws, and have performed numerous terror raids. 

The official government of the Republic claimed they had nothing to do with these terrorists, and they disavowed the leader of the defiants, Karishal Muritor. Most probably lies, in order to save face on the international arena. But, back then, the Republic had more reasonable leadership in the person of Karin Midular. She tried to rein in the hatred-filled terrorists and had Muritor stopped by force in Auga. Ever since, for the followers of the evil defiants, Auga has been a place of pilgrimage to commemorate their martyred leader. 

It did not take long for the brief light of reason to be extinguished from the Republic: after an internal power struggle, those that adhere to the defiants' creed of hate deposed Midular and took power. The current leader, Maleatu Shakor, scandalously rehabilitated the terrorists - he probably was one of them. I am shocked that there was not more outcry everywhere in the cluster over this.

Now that our valliant pilots with the 24th imperial crusade managed to recapture Auga, the worship of the terrorist leader Muritor in that system can finally be put to an end.   

Foundation Day celebrations

Past week we celebrated Foundation Day! 

Also this year, LUMEN organized their own celebrations, with a parade and fireworks display in Amarr, at the Empress' Honor Guard above our home world. The fireworks were so plentiful, and of such a brightness that they must have been visible from the nighttime planetside. Unlike some previous years, the parade was not disrupted by Ushra Khan terrorists. Personally I credit this to our warzone pilots keeping the pressure on them in the warzone.

This was followed by speeches from Dame Daphiti and from our Directrix, emphasizing how faith brings us together under the guidance of the Empress. After that, a formal celebratory ball took place. 

I'm afraid I missed most of the capsuleer celebrations - I was too caught up preparing the celebrations for our baseliner staff at the Chapel, and doing the heap of paperwork for the MIO permission. That latter task has now finally been completed, and with the paperwork submitted I hope to get a positive answer soon.

Red Tape

Mr. Firth has made good progress in getting us an MIO permit to explore in Mezagorm, bypassing the Directorate General of Cultural-Historic Patrimonium.

However, we have hit a bump in the road, as I need to fill in a background-check form. One question in particular appears difficult to answer:

Have you traveled outside the Empire in the past ten years? If so, give a precise list with for each occasion: when, where and why?

This covers all of my capsuleer life! I must have been outside of the Empire hundreds of times, and do not quite recall every separate occasion, let alone when and why... Now, if I make a mistake and that is detected by the MIO, we can forget about the permit.

Now, for the last 18 months, Mr. Firth has been the political officer on the Indagatrix, and for that period he had no problems producing this list for me. I think he simply had it in a drawer in his cabin.

For the period before that, I will have to rely on my logs to set up the paperwork...

Mr. Firth's kind help

Good news! Mr. Ivan Firth, the political officer on the Indagatrix, has taken an interest in my quest for the Ink of Truth. 

Indeed, he had been complaining a bit about how we did not contribute as much as we used to do, bringing back interesting items or information for the Ministry. It has gone a bit quiet since the Empire's most glorious victory over the Drifters.

With his current status -he seems to have much more clout now that he has been promoted to Itenerant Frumentaris Second Class- he might just be able to get me a temporary permit for an exploration expedition in Mezagorm. If he succeeds, we will even have the backing of an Imperial Navy punisher-class frigate to clear the site of hostile blood raiders.

Expecting a positive outcome to Mr. Firth's petition, I am preparing the expedition, and putting the station scanning equipment in the cargo hold. Given the recent splash in ISK, I have been able to purchase fancier versions of the radio-isotope fingerprint detectors. They will allow me to pinpoint regions in the stations that have been inhabited for a while after the Mad Emperor's "temple of pride" was formally abandoned.