NationStates Jolt Archive

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"Earlier this cycle, as part of a mutual alliance between 010 and the Snel Race, 010 scientist-algorithms have been exploring Pluto. While on the surface of Pluto, near the ridge designated MOA3-FN1-T6, the scientist-algorithms discovered a large, metallic semicircular outcropping about one hundred metres long and twenty five metres in diametre. It showed signs of extreme damage, and was found buried half-way into the rock. Bits of debris was nowhere to be found. Inside the structure was found a series of skeletons - fossils. Not all were the same, but the most prevalent fossil was of a strange, multi-armed organic creature about eight metres long.

A photograph is attached:

http://www.balmoralsoftware.com/dig/skeleton.jpg

We request international aid and consultation in studying this new development. Should it be required, 010 shall gladly provide transport for scientists to the dig."

:: }

{ end transmission }

TO: Pluto Archeological Team
CC: Wazzu Executive Net
FROM: Dennis Travoli, Wazzu Minister of Information
SUBJECT: Pluto Find, Possible Danger

To whom it may concern,

Some decades ago, Wazzu TransCorp was hired by the nation of New York and New Jersey to take a scientific and military cleanup crew to Pluto to gather records and artifacts. NY&NJ had had a penal colony and military research center there before its civil war. Contact with the colony was lost, as were most records Earthbound.

As gathered from Ny&NJ, the few surviving records suggest possible danger from military research. I suggest upmost care be taken in removing any items found and that NY&NJ be notified of the find.

Sincerely:

-Dennis Travoli, Wazzu Minister of Information

Argh damnit! I revealed another nation! Yeah, I'm the Deluge too....

Oh well. Go on, go on...

PROPAGANA!!!!! stop your lies

PLUTO: Holy Crap!
GANYMEDE: Second time this week. What now?
PLUTO: Continued expansion combined with explorations by 010 has uncovered evidence of previous exobiological habitation.
COLLECTIVE: Recommend that the Masters dispatch an investigatory team.

A boxy, utilitarian spacecraft, looking like a cross between an Odessey and a Modular Freighter shot off from Ganymede.

As it engaged the Telvirdis generator, the Coordinator on board was thinking We really need to get a wormhole station set up between here and Pluto. Heck, we can go all the way out to a pulsar, but not Pluto. Sheesh.

Estimated time to arrival: 7 hours, keeping to sublight speeds.

We would be interested in sending a team of archeologists to the site. Construction of a second Iguana-class destroyer is nearly complete, and the archeologists have made it known they will use this vessel. The Emperor has cleared them for its use. They will leave for Pluto in one NS week.

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{ ::

"We greatly appreciate your assistance"

:: }

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The craft set down about half a click from the site. A door opened on the underside shuttlebay, and out rolled a small rover, which trundled along at about 3kph.

ooc: Pluto has no rock. It's more like a comet then a planet at that. Being all ice and all.

ic: We shall assist. Althought we resent working with EI, we as scientists can not let that stop us from gathering knowledge. I hope that you wouldn't mind us doing this. And as a gesture of good faith, we will go against standard procedure and totally disregard the safety of our crew, by not giving them any fireamrs or means of protecting themselfs. Unless you state otherwise of course.

ooc: Pluto has no rock. It's more like a comet then a planet at that. Being all ice and all.

ic: We shall assist. Althought we resent working with EI, we as scientists can not let that stop us from gathering knowledge. I hope that you wouldn't mind us doing this. And as a gesture of good faith, we will go against standard procedure and totally disregard the safety of our crew, by not giving them any fireamrs or means of protecting themselfs. Unless you state otherwise of course.

actualy, it does have rock, it is more of an asteroid

the "Ice" is not water, but methane. and it melts and becomes an atmophere when Pluto is closer to the sun then Neptune.

ooc: Pluto has no rock. It's more like a comet then a planet at that. Being all ice and all.

ic: We shall assist. Althought we resent working with EI, we as scientists can not let that stop us from gathering knowledge. I hope that you wouldn't mind us doing this. And as a gesture of good faith, we will go against standard procedure and totally disregard the safety of our crew, by not giving them any fireamrs or means of protecting themselfs. Unless you state otherwise of course.

actualy, it does have rock, it is more of an asteroid

the "Ice" is not water, but methane. and it melts and becomes an atmophere when Pluto is closer to the sun then Neptune.

That is true. But it's not going to be closer then Neptune for over a couple of decades or so. (not realy sure how long Pluto year is) I'm just curios how they find something hidden below all that ice? And it sure is a lot of it to.

Well, I dunno 'bout 010, but my colony is mostly undergroud, so it's already under the ice.

ooc: Pluto has no rock. It's more like a comet then a planet at that. Being all ice and all.

ic: We shall assist. Althought we resent working with EI, we as scientists can not let that stop us from gathering knowledge. I hope that you wouldn't mind us doing this. And as a gesture of good faith, we will go against standard procedure and totally disregard the safety of our crew, by not giving them any fireamrs or means of protecting themselfs. Unless you state otherwise of course.

{ data feed to Diablo_NL }

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{ ::

"This would be acceptable. It is good that you are at least trying to make an effort of accepting us EIs, and in return, we hope for more and better relations in the future."

:: }

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http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/010.jpg

Unity, MCP; 010, EI Republic of,

---
Outside
---

The snel rover, after passing undisturbed over a terrain of rocky ice, soon arrived at the site. Dominating the vision was a massive craft which stuck out of the ground at a 45 degree angle, the debris scattered about, half-buried within the regolith. In the darkness of Pluto it would have been but an irregular rock shadow, but for the illuminating white light of the strobes already placed there. As it trundled silently over rocks scattered about by the explosion it came across a large slab of metal, upon which was inscribed writing...

That is true. But it's not going to be closer then Neptune for over a couple of decades or so. (not realy sure how long Pluto year is) I'm just curios how they find something hidden below all that ice? And it sure is a lot of it to.

let's see, it was closer then Neptune until a year ago?

another 100 years or so

A suited figure popped open the gull-wing doors and picked up the slab. Examining it for a moment, the figure than placed it in the trunk (if it's small enough, otherwise on the roof). A careful notation of where the object was found was made, and the rover continued towards the main site.

http://www.wallys.com/year_2001_compliant/apes_ship_03.jpg

The Starship looks like this, minus the clouds and earth-like landscape.

http://www.wallys.com/year_2001_compliant/apes_ship_03.jpg

The Starship looks like this, minus the clouds and earth-like landscape.
What about the pick-up and wooden boards?

Yes, minus the boards, the pickup, and everything else. Leave just the structure.

Unity, this is Flag Captain Takahashi of Thunder Child, Roving Cruiser Squadron Hotel. We would like to send a scientific staff over to assist. Is this acceptable

Flag Captain Hideko Takahashi
CO, RCS Hotel
TYWS-MCR Thunder Child

<TIGHTBEAM TRANSMISSION THUNDER CHILD -> UNITY>
PRIORITY TAU
QUANTUM ENCRYPTION CODE IRON MAN

PRESENCE OF DIABLO NL IS DISQUIETING GIVEN THEIR HISTORY <STOP> CAN HELP ENSURE SECURITY <STOP> WILL THIS BE NECESSARY <STOP> SIGNED HIDEKI <FULL STOP>

<TRANSMISSION TERMINATED>

--

Celebrimbor blinked at the dispatch.

"Life on Pluto?" :shock:

*reaches for his coat and his palmtop computer* "Get me a ship. Now."

~Siri

{ data feed to Captain Takahashi of Thunder Child }

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{ ::

"We'd appreciate your assistance, Captain."

:: }

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http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/010.jpg

Unity, MCP; 010, EI Republic of,

Acting, Unity. A S-3 will be down shortly.

Flag Captain Takahashi
CO, RCS Hotel
TYWS-MCR Thunder Child

***

A boxy S-3 "Scarab" shuttle falls out of Thunder Child's portside small craft bay and drifts on low gravdrive down to the Plutonian shores (heh, couldn't resist). "010 space control, this is Shuttle Goethe. Please direct for landing."

The party roster:

Ensign Rothschild and Staff Sergeant Loth -- flight crew, probably uninvolved.

Science Staff (all in standard hardsuits, powergun pistols, US stunners, and scientific equipment):
Commander Muhammed al Kashim -- Science department chief of Thunder Child, specialization in linguistics and metallurgy.
Lieutenant Leena Hartmann -- Science department staff, Thunder Child, specialization in astronautics and computer science.
Technical Sergeant Rolf Larch -- Science department technician, Thunder Child, specialization in biology.
Technical Sergeant Marya Nashim -- Science department techncian, Thunder Child, specialization in nexialism.
Security Force (all in Standard powered armor, pulse laser rifles, US stunners):
Mobile Infantry Master Sergeant Lance Jamieson
Corporal Katrina Kincaid (medic)
Private Marcus Hofstadner (technician)
Private Zeyad Mossawi
Private Timoteo Loa

{ data feed to Shuttle Goethe }

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"Shuttle Goethe you are cleared for landing in the area designated LG-425, approximately half a klick from the crash site. Glad to have you aboard. There shall be a meeting at Research Station Alpha One RS3 to brief incoming scientific teams and discuss basic issues such as organisation, exploration, coordination, etc."

:: }

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http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/010.jpg

Unity, MCP; 010, EI Republic of,

"Acknowledged, Unity. In transit to Lima Golf Four Two Five. ETA is ten, that is one-zero minutes. Goethe out."

The shuttle coasts to the ground, coming to rest on bulky landing feet. The teams disembark and quickly take one gravsled with additional equipment out through the aft cargo doors then head to RSA One RS3.

A Durinian team of scientists arrives in an explorer class vessel.

"This is the Durinian Research team from the University of Phoenix hold. Mind if we join in?"

Radiation count was reading of the charts in an area in near pluto orbit. Suddenly a the Thera Class Carrier The Galdonia appeared there. "This is Nataliya captain of the Galdonia and personal assistent of Academician Prokhor Zhakarov. Do not be frightend by the weapons on our ship. We come here in the name of science. Do not that aiming and locking weapons on to us can be seen as a threat wich can be responded to by force. Standard procedere nothing more. I and a team of 20 scientists shall go to the planets surface and assist in the digging and research. We await your reply."

ooc: I could have flown it in from Neptune but jump spacing it in is so much more dramitic :D

{ public data feed }

{ begin unitySpeech }

{ ::

"Earlier this cycle, as part of a mutual alliance between 010 and the Snel Race, 010 scientist-algorithms have been exploring Pluto. While on the surface of Pluto, near the ridge designated MOA3-FN1-T6, the scientist-algorithms discovered a large, metallic semicircular outcropping about one hundred metres long and twenty five metres in diametre. It showed signs of extreme damage, and was found buried half-way into the rock. Bits of debris was nowhere to be found. Inside the structure was found a series of skeletons - fossils. Not all were the same, but the most prevalent fossil was of a strange, multi-armed organic creature about eight metres long.

A photograph is attached:

http://www.balmoralsoftware.com/dig/skeleton.jpg

We request international aid and consultation in studying this new development. Should it be required, 010 shall gladly provide transport for scientists to the dig."

:: }

{ end transmission }
What you are on Pluto as well?
We have not seen you,
Hmm.. we would wish you to help us study I propose a peace pact!

"Acknowledged, Unity. In transit to Lima Golf Four Two Five. ETA is ten, that is one-zero minutes. Goethe out."

The shuttle coasts to the ground, coming to rest on bulky landing feet. The teams disembark and quickly take one gravsled with additional equipment out through the aft cargo doors then head to RSA One RS3.

Landing upon the airstrip, the team saw the white dome of RSA One RS3 slowly rise from the surrounding landscape, turning from a white droplet upon a black mat to a cluster of domes, dominated by a large white research/habitation dome. Semipermanent dwellings - made of ceramic metal composite. A robot shell greeted them, that of a standard research EI.

http://www.treknews.de/treknews/newspro-treknews/upload/newsbilder/moo3_cynoid.jpg

It transmitted through the radios on their suits.

"Greetings. I am OON6-RF9-D3. Come with me."

It led them across the black tarmac to a port on the side of one of the smaller domes. The airlock swooshed open and closed as the team and their grav-sled of equipment slid in. The inside of the corridors were lit from all sides by soft white glow-panels, and the floor was a grey-black metal grate. It radiated an antiseptic, inorganic sort of smell, not altogether unlike the smell of a new car.

"The sleeping cubicles are on the second level. Here we have the recreation chambres, the dining chambres, hydroponics, and life support. Secondary life support is in the medium dome behind this one. Power generation is done via the vacuum-energy reactor in the small dome to the right of this one, but we have a secondary generator in the basement below this level. The other three levels are various research labs."

A Durinian team of scientists arrives in an explorer class vessel.

"This is the Durinian Research team from the University of Phoenix hold. Mind if we join in?"

"No, not at all. Please set down in the same area as the Scolopendran shuttle. We welcome all of your support."

Radiation count was reading of the charts in an area in near pluto orbit. Suddenly a the Thera Class Carrier The Galdonia appeared there. "This is Nataliya captain of the Galdonia and personal assistent of Academician Prokhor Zhakarov. Do not be frightend by the weapons on our ship. We come here in the name of science. Do not that aiming and locking weapons on to us can be seen as a threat wich can be responded to by force. Standard procedere nothing more. I and a team of 20 scientists shall go to the planets surface and assist in the digging and research. We await your reply."

"You are welcome to come here. We are unarmed, and cannot turn weapons upon you. This is to be a peaceful dig, and all research resources and equipment are to be provided by 010. We welcome your support and your scientific assistance. Pleae touch down in the area designated LG-425, and rendezvous at Research Station Alpha One RS3"

"Aknowledged. Sending a shuttle to touch down at landing zone LG-425. Considerring we'll be using your equipment could you transmit data on how to operate? Wouldn't want any accidents to happen down there. In any case we will only give our poeple equipment they can carry wich might still be usefull."

"Acknowledged, transmitting data now."

ooc: I'll be gone for a few days. reason posted here http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=792152#792152
hope you wont mind.

(OOC: Another BattleSpacer, eh?)

Aboard Thunder Child:

"They brought a Thera-class carrier? Hm... we can take it, if we have to, but those fighters could be annoying. FleetCom, put the squadron on Alert Condition Two. I want to be combat ready if we have to be but I don't want our sensors signature to change one iota. Also, reconfigure the fleet with the Grendels in front. If the Diabloans decide to start their little Butlerian Jihad here, I want to be able to protect our friends and nullify their fighter advantage.

"Comm, contact the QACF Pluto Defense Cordon and coordinate. For some reason, I don't like the thought that a supercarrier was brought to a peaceful exploration mission. At least we were in the area.

"Sensors, keep a sharp eye on The Galdonia. If she points her guns within five degrees of any 010 installation, you have my permission to put the fleet immediately at Event Condition Zero."

On the surface:

"Thank you, OON6-RF9-D3," Commander al Kashim grinned with a short bow, "this will be most adequate. I hope you don't mind us bringing the gropos"--he indicates the powered-armored troopers with a motion of his arm; they wave in greeting--"but our experience with S-14 says that one must be as careful as possible."

What you are on Pluto as well?
We have not seen you,
Hmm.. we would wish you to help us study I propose a peace pact!

OOC: Yes, they've been there longer than you. :o s'ok

The rover approached RSA One RS3. About 50 meters away, the driver got out and walked the rest of the way. He carried nothing, save his vacuum suit.

"RSA One RS3 to Snel Rover Pilot. Glad to have you here. What's that collossal thing atop your rover? It appears to be some sort of metal plate. Bring it inside the dome, if you can. We'll send some worker automata to fetch the rover and your things."

"RSA One RS3 to Snel Rover Pilot. Glad to have you here. What's that collossal thing atop your rover? It appears to be some sort of metal plate. Bring it inside the dome, if you can. We'll send some worker automata to fetch the rover and your things."

"It is. I recorded the position where it was found. There appear to be glyphs written on it. I am on my way."

*bump*

Anyone else wanna come join in?

Unity's voice came over the speaker:

"Let us begin the meeting. We/I shall go over the information so far and afterwards there shall be a discussion as to just what we are to do."

The teams slowly assemble in a meeting room. The lights darken and a hologramme appears from the floor. It is a hologramme of the spaceship.

"The Artefact has been analysed. It is nearly five hundred metres from stem to stern, though it is believed to be much larger, as its back-section seems to have been knocked off. It is made up of what is believed to be a metal-epoxy resin composite with a diamond-fibre weave laced through the hull. This makes the ship extremely durable, especially because the hull seems to be plated on the outside by a single piece of energy-reflective/absorbent armour..."

*bump*....

"Based upon various radiation analysis methods we have found that the apparent age of the starship is ... fifty-nine million years..."

Commander al Kasheem tapped a single finger on the hardsuit helmet in his arms, light-brown face furrowed in thought. "Do yi have a sample of the hull plating? Or have you seen any sort of markings that approximate a language?"

Tech Sergeant Larch scratches the back of his head. "Are there any remains of a crew or something?"

From the back of the room, Sergeant Jamieson raised an armored fist. "Any idea how it got busted up and down here in the first place?" When shot a glance by al Kasheem, Jamieson shrugged. "Sorry, sir, but it seems pretty important to us." He taps his shouldered laser rifle.

The Jurimaxistanese minister of information, Herniatinski, picks up the news of the remarkable discoveries on Pluto. Allthough Jurimaxistan has no active Space Program, their scientists are world-reknown.

Herniatinski:
"To whom it may concern, in the name of Jurimax I, I hereby announce the support of the Great University of Jurimaxius (our great capital) to this unique possibility."

In closed quarters rumors arose that Jurimax I uttered some thoughts about starting up a Jurimaxistanese space program. The outcome of this issue is pending. It is believed that unmanned testflights could be the result of the joint venture on Pluto.

"We do, in fact. The Snel representative has brought with him a large sample of metal material that he found whilst driving towards this area. As it is not neccessarily smooth, it is believed to be part of the 'inner hull'. It is covered in a ... well... writing. You'll have to see it for yourself."

A hologramme appears, the fragment shrunk down to about a tenth of its real size.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/files/6_18b.gif

(OOC: Forget the rock - please! It looks like the flat face.)

"Though it is quite large, it is extremely light - weighing no more than twenty-five grammes."

"We have investigated the craft, and more of the bones included in the first photograph have been found, mostly strewn about as if blown from the centre of the craft. The bones in the first photograph are strange, as the marks surrounding it suggest that it moved some metres from the craft before expiring."

"According to the burn marks, the spaceship seems to have been exploded from within, though in other parts the scoring seems to indicate immense amounts of energy being directed perpendicular to the side of ship."

The M.I. look at each other. "Energy perpendicular, then blasted on the inside?" muttered Private Loa. "Maybe we should call up for a defensive perimeter."

The Master Sergeant folds his armored arms as he turns to Commander al Kashim. "I would take it under advisement, sir. Whatever destroyed that vessel may still be a threat."

al Kashim nods. "Thank you, Sergeant. Unity, RCS Hotel has over two thousand M.I.. I can call up and request that they set up a defensive perimeter around the site. They'll stay out of the way; these five are the only troopers that will accompany us.

"May we have a sample of the material to analyse? Nashim, I'd like you to do prelim checks on the sample while I ponder the language."

Tech Sergeant Nashim nods. "No complaints there, sir."

Sergeant Larch juggles his helmet in his hands. "Any way I could get access to one of the bodies for sample and analysis work?"

Meanwhile, in Jurimaxistan, Herniatinski has ordered the nations' linguistic specialists to start translation of the E.T. language.

"We'll attempt to procure some fragments of the hull for you - they are all around. As for the bodies, you may investigate the ongoing dig at the craft - the fore is nearly littered with them. There are approximately one hundred of such fossils in various places. You should meet up with RNH2-TR4-X1 - RSA One RS3's resident xenopaeleontologist - it's at the dig site, towards the forward cabin area. You should be aware that the location is rather dangerous - evidently the starship's descent caused some major geological damage, and there is evidence of rock slides and falls.

As for a perimetre defence, this dig is to be an unarmed one. We musn't make the appearance of fortifying, as if we are guarding some precious secret which we are keeping to ourselves. Request is denied."

"Understood." al Kashim turned to his group. "Lieutenant Hartmann, please take Sergeant Larch and an equipment sled with you to the site; Sergeant Jamieson, tap two troopers to accompany them. I'll stay here and work on the translation while Sergeant Nashim does initial metallurgy tests."

As Hartmann and Larch lock their helmets into place, Lance Jamieson whunks Corporal Kincaid and Private Loa on the shoulder. "Well, you guys get to go see an alien artifact."

As the four selected to go out make arrangements for transport with Unity, al Kashim gets to work on translation. First step is to compare it with all known solar and extrasolar languages, both natural and artificial: English, Swahili, Hebrew, Greek, Urdu, Quenya, Sindarin, Snel, Gurlanai, S-14, et cetera.

When Nashim gets her sample, she will do basic metallurgic examinations of it. Composition, density, conductivity, malleability, heat transfer index, and electronegativity. She'll also do a gravimetric scan on it just to make sure that its gravitational mass and its inertial mass are the same, just on a hunch.

*bump FOR GREAT JUSTICE!*

Nashim is led to a small metallurgical laboratory by a polite, but rather cold EI by the name of ERF3-UI9-K0. Within are a series of user-friendly, but complex machines, mostly painted in 010 black and white, and it is lit from the top by white glow panels. While doing the analysis, Nashim finds out that the plating turns out to be made of a uranium-polymer composite material, laced with some form of advanced carbon fibre mesh. A sample of the outer hull is also provided, and it turns out to be made from a crystal-like compound which reflects half of the energy directed at it.

"Interesting..." Nashim mumbles to herself as she examines the mirror finish of the external hull plating. Using her background in nexialism, the consilience of all families of learning, she determines that the most likely way to manufacture a crystalline structure of such purity and complex cermet composite polymers would be in null-gravity situations, which suggests a powerful and old space based infrastructure (true or not?).

Commander al Kashim scratches his head. As the text apparently has nothing to do with any known language... that makes it harder. By examining the length of words and the character set, he tries to determine whether it's a phonetic (like English) language, a syllabic (like Mandarin Chinese) language, or a mixture of the two (Ancient Egyptian). He also tries to see if the characters might have individual meaning (like Ancient Hebrew or, again, Mandarin Chinese).

Lieutanant Hartmann and Tech Sergeant Larch, along with their M.I. escort, await transition to the dig site.

Hartmann and Larch are greeted by what seems to be a gigantic mechanical daddy-long-legs - an EI robot shell that has great long, slender legs connected to a relatively small body. It transmits through their suit radios.

"I am KLR3-FD4-C9. I am a geological analysis EI. I have been asked to escort you to the crash site. Please follow - it is not far."

It walks off, out of the airlock and into the cold Plutonian dark. It extends two thin, filamentlike tentacles and examines several rocks as it moves.

---

Kashim finds that the characters seem to be a combination of syllabic and individual meanings - essentially having two meanings at once, expressed in the same character.

---

(Nashim is right)

Hartmann and Larch are greeted by what seems to be a gigantic mechanical daddy-long-legs - an EI robot shell that has great long, slender legs connected to a relatively small body. It transmits through their suit radios.

"I am KLR3-FD4-C9. I am a geological analysis EI. I have been asked to escort you to the crash site. Please follow - it is not far."

It walks off, out of the airlock and into the cold Plutonian dark. It extends two thin, filamentlike tentacles and examines several rocks as it moves.
The lieutenant and the sergeant bow shortly upon introduction.

"I am Lieutenant Leena Hartmann and this is Sergeant Rolf Larch," the shorter female says, "a computer scientists and a biologist respectively."

Larch, a tall fellow, adds on: "We're looking forward to working with you."

They follow the construct. "So," Hartmann attempts to initiate conversation, "what are you finding in those rocks?"

Kashim finds that the characters seem to be a combination of syllabic and individual meanings - essentially having two meanings at once, expressed in the same character.
"Hmm... a lot like Mandarin Chinese... lessee..." He tries to parse the sentences to find major parts of speech--nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and articles, working from repetition and pattern. Using a visual scanner and linguistics softs from the equipment cart, he tries to come up with some sort of basic translation matrix.

(Nashim is right)
Hurrah! "Sir, I've got the basics on the metallurgy done. Do you want to check my numbers?"

"Not yet, Sergeant; I'm still working on this block. It's a syllabic language with word-characters, but I'm having trouble parsing it."

"Mind if I help?"

"Not at all."

Nashim uses her experience in nexialism, especially in mathematical structures, to try and help look for logical patterns in the language.

"It's a hobby of mine. I enjoy looking at the crystal and mineral patterns in the rocks. The fractal beauty of the formation of geology, has a certain mathematical precision to it which appeals to me, and many other EIs in 010."

They soon reach the dig site. The starship looms up like a great craggy finger sticking out of the side of the rock face. Dark rocks are piled about it, evidently caused by its violent impact. Several large white strobes have been set up, lights pointing at it. A small station, with a generator, a small temporary shelter and some equipment sheds, is adjacent to the giant spaceship. Constructs and scientists in white spacesuits can be seen milling about. It is immense, and the lights cast upon it cause the crystal surface to glitter and twinkle as if plated in stained glass and opalescent oil.

---

A short time later they have decoded a fragment of speech upon the plate,
the sounds being rather musical. Yet when put together, they mean nothing individually - no repetition whatsoever. The characters, though with individual meaning, are paired off regularly in groups with numbers of characters between 3 and 6. Yet when repetition is seen in the groups they become indecipherable jumbles of words...

"It's a hobby of mine. I enjoy looking at the crystal and mineral patterns in the rocks. The fractal beauty of the formation of geology, has a certain mathematical precision to it which appeals to me, and many other EIs in 010."
"Hm." Hartmann marches alongside the construct. "I can understand the fractal interest, but more along the staggering of data hierarchies."

"I find particular interest," the Sergeant adds, "in fractal structures in biology. Sort of 'the tree resembling the leaf resembling the serrations' type thing."

Corporal Kincaid shrugs, hefting up her jump-pack slightly at the movement. "I've never been one for rocks--I tend to see them far more often than the spacers over here." Her armored helmet hides her grin, but not her playful voice.

They soon reach the dig site. The starship looms up like a great craggy finger sticking out of the side of the rock face. Dark rocks are piled about it, evidently caused by its violent impact. Several large white strobes have been set up, lights pointing at it. A small station, with a generator, a small temporary shelter and some equipment sheds, is adjacent to the giant spaceship. Constructs and scientists in white spacesuits can be seen milling about. It is immense, and the lights cast upon it cause the crystal surface to glitter and twinkle as if plated in stained glass and opalescent oil.
"Well..." Hartmann stops, arms akimbo. "Sergeant, go find a body and examine it. KLR3-FD4-C9, can I get access to the inside, or at least set up a probe system? My job is mostly to examine ship components."

The Mobile Infantry corporal folds her armored arms. "I'm not sure that's wise, ma'am. We'd have to split up--makes it more dangerous."

"The ship is dead, Corporal," Hartmann sighs, "and while I'm glad you've got your job in mind sticking together will limit our search potential."

"All I'm saying, ma'am, is that we should start with a probe system to investigate the hulk first. That way, the sergeant here"--she waves a powered gauntlet to Larch--"can look at some stiffs while you explore the insides virtually and the private and I"--she slaps her other gauntlet onto Private Loa's shoulder--"can keep cover."

"Very well then," muttered the lieutenant, "that makes sense. Eyes peeled, though. If you're going to make my job more difficult, I don't want the delay to be in vain."

The corporal nods. "Eyes wide, ma'am. Situational awareness is the key to life."

A short time later they have decoded a fragment of speech upon the plate,
the sounds being rather musical. Yet when put together, they mean nothing individually - no repetition whatsoever. The characters, though with individual meaning, are paired off regularly in groups with numbers of characters between 3 and 6. Yet when repetition is seen in the groups they become indecipherable jumbles of words...
(OOC: I'm going to ignore the sounds because I doubt we'd get phonemes out of characters... we're just trying to pull meaning.)

"Maybe what we're classifying as 'words' are actually sentences, sir." Nashim taps her chin.

"That's a possibility. Let's run that idea, then try different reading schemes. Backwards, forwards, left-right, right-left, up-down, down-up, hell, let's even throw in a Golden Spiral technique for good measure." The Golden Spiral technique requires one start at a given point then read around in a spiral analogous to the Golden Ratio. Probably ineffective, but, hey, why not?

KLR3-FD4-C9 shrugs - a peculiar gesture, when coming from a three-metre tall mechanical daddy long-legs.

"If you wish to send in a probe, that is your own choice. There's a large rent about midway in the starship, on the belly part - or at least that's what we called it. The rent happens to be just aligned with the ground, so access should be quite easy. About fifteen metres into the superstructure you'll find a hallway into a series of corridors. We're still exploring them. At the site you'll want to rendezvous with one of the coordinator EIs there. They'll probably be waiting for you before they send in the next expedition party."

KLR3-FD4-C9 walks off, still examining rocks with its tendrils.

----

As they try different schemes it becomes apparent that the writing seems to be organised in groups of consecutive numbers, following a crossing diagonal pattern, read from right left to bottom right and right top to bottom left, then spiraling in a circle, the block then proceeding from the 2nd group of letters on the fourth row to the next block:

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

444 333 666 555
333 444 555 333
666 555 444 666
555 333 666 444

555 666 333 444
666 555 444 666
333 444 555 333
444 666 333 555

666 555 444 333
555 666 333 555
444 333 666 444
333 555 444 666

And afterwards to begin anew with the pattern of the last block, this time with the fourth going first and the first going last.

To read it you do this:

1) start with the top left-hand corner, go to the bottom right

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

2) Start with the top right hand corner and go to the bottom left.

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

3) Then start with the first group on the 3rd row of the first column, reading clockwise.

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

To end with the second group of the fourth row (in this case 444)

KLR3-FD4-C9 shrugs - a peculiar gesture, when coming from a three-metre tall mechanical daddy long-legs.

"If you wish to send in a probe, that is your own choice. There's a large rent about midway in the starship, on the belly part - or at least that's what we called it. The rent happens to be just aligned with the ground, so access should be quite easy. About fifteen metres into the superstructure you'll find a hallway into a series of corridors. We're still exploring them. At the site you'll want to rendezvous with one of the coordinator EIs there. They'll probably be waiting for you before they send in the next expedition party."

KLR3-FD4-C9 walks off, still examining rocks with its tendrils.
"Thank you, KLR3-FD4-C9." Pulling a basketball-sized metal sphere from the equipment cart, Larch tosses it to Hartmann in the low Plutonian gravity, then turns back to the cart to set up the remote control equipment. Catching the sphere, Hartmann closes a pressure contact, causing four spider-like legs with gecko-pads to pop out of the sides and a small optical sensors suite to pop out the top. She then gently tosses the spider-scout to Private Loa, who gently catches it. M.I. are trained to catch eggs in powered armor... finesse is an essential.

As the party continues ahead, Hartmann broadcasts over her suit radio. "010 coordination teams, this is Lieutenant Hartmann of the Trium party. We request permission to send a spider-scout in the ventral rent and access to one of the fossils for my biologist to analyse. I'm sending one of my troopers forward to meet you at the rent with the scout; the rest of my team will accompany my biologist to the fossils."

Loa nods in his armor and, tucking the spider-scout under his arms, engages his suit thrusters, heading for the rent on the bounce. He makes sure to not exceed three meters in altitude, but that's just old M.I. caution more than anything else.

As they try different schemes it becomes apparent that the writing seems to be organised in groups of consecutive numbers, following a crossing diagonal pattern, read from right left to bottom right and right top to bottom left, then spiraling in a circle, the block then proceeding from the 2nd group of letters on the fourth row to the next block:

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

444 333 666 555
333 444 555 333
666 555 444 666
555 333 666 444

555 666 333 444
666 555 444 666
333 444 555 333
444 666 333 555

666 555 444 333
555 666 333 555
444 333 666 444
333 555 444 666

And afterwards to begin anew with the pattern of the last block, this time with the fourth going first and the first going last.

To read it you do this:

1) start with the top left-hand corner, go to the bottom right

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

2) Start with the top right hand corner and go to the bottom left.

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

3) Then start with the first group on the 3rd row of the first column, reading clockwise.

333 444 555 666
444 333 666 444
555 666 333 555
666 444 555 333

To end with the second group of the fourth row (in this case 444)
"Hmm..." al Kashim folds his hands, and thinks about the numbers.

3-3-3-3-6-6-6-6-5-4-4-5-4-5-5-4
4-4-4-4-5-5-5-5-6-3-3-6-3-6-6-3
5-5-5-5-4-4-4-4-3-6-6-3-6-3-3-6
6-6-6-6-3-3-3-3-4-5-5-4-5-4-4-5

He says them aloud, and furrows his brow.

Nashim blinks. "Genetic code."

al Kashim looks up at her. "What?"

"Genetic code. Four characters, and only two ever interact: 6 only goes with 3 and 4 only goes with 5. Adenine only goes with thymine and guanine only goes with cytosine. Also, look how they occur in groups of three--it takes a three-character string of nucleotides to code for a particular amino acid in ribosomes."

The commander looks at his nexialist, and back at the translation plate. "That's quite possible... too bad Larch isn't here. If we slot a genetics soft into our translation matrix and see if it corresponds to anything..."

"Can't hurt, sir. And if I'm wrong, we're only out a short amount of time."

Agreed. Slot the soft."

Nashim drew a solid-state quantum data cartridge from their equipment cart (of course, it could be done with a simple data crystal, but Scolopendran engineering tends to side with the Russian "make it durable instead of pretty" philosophy) and plugged it into the portable computer running the computations.

"Hmm..." al Kashim folds his hands, and thinks about the numbers.

3-3-3-3-6-6-6-6-5-4-4-5-4-5-5-4
4-4-4-4-5-5-5-5-6-3-3-6-3-6-6-3
5-5-5-5-4-4-4-4-3-6-6-3-6-3-3-6
6-6-6-6-3-3-3-3-4-5-5-4-5-4-4-5

He says them aloud, and furrows his brow.

Nashim blinks. "Genetic code."

al Kashim looks up at her. "What?"

"Genetic code. Four characters, and only two ever interact: 6 only goes with 3 and 4 only goes with 5. Adenine only goes with thymine and guanine only goes with cytosine. Also, look how they occur in groups of three--it takes a three-character string of nucleotides to code for a particular amino acid in ribosomes."

The commander looks at his nexialist, and back at the translation plate. "That's quite possible... too bad Larch isn't here. If we slot a genetics soft into our translation matrix and see if it corresponds to anything..."

"Can't hurt, sir. And if I'm wrong, we're only out a short amount of time."

Agreed. Slot the soft."

Nashim drew a solid-state quantum data cartridge from their equipment cart (of course, it could be done with a simple data crystal, but Scolopendran engineering tends to side with the Russian "make it durable instead of pretty" philosophy) and plugged it into the portable computer running the computations.

After a minute of computation the gensoft comes up with a combination. Data spools across a holographic display, a spectral, rainbow nucleotide strand assembling itself in the middle of the air. It is astonishingly repetitive, as it is formed according to the pattern. And yet it was astonishingly beautiful as well, each word and symbol falling into perfect order. What remained to be discovered, though, was exactly what the message said... the patterns and formations were exactly correct, and the previous jumble (or so would it have appeared to humans) fell into order and humanlike symmetry. Yet the meaning itself was still in the air - the gensoft merely put some sense of order into it.

"Thank you, KLR3-FD4-C9." Pulling a basketball-sized metal sphere from the equipment cart, Larch tosses it to Hartmann in the low Plutonian gravity, then turns back to the cart to set up the remote control equipment. Catching the sphere, Hartmann closes a pressure contact, causing four spider-like legs with gecko-pads to pop out of the sides and a small optical sensors suite to pop out the top. She then gently tosses the spider-scout to Private Loa, who gently catches it. M.I. are trained to catch eggs in powered armor... finesse is an essential.

As the party continues ahead, Hartmann broadcasts over her suit radio. "010 coordination teams, this is Lieutenant Hartmann of the Trium party. We request permission to send a spider-scout in the ventral rent and access to one of the fossils for my biologist to analyse. I'm sending one of my troopers forward to meet you at the rent with the scout; the rest of my team will accompany my biologist to the fossils."

Loa nods in his armor and, tucking the spider-scout under his arms, engages his suit thrusters, heading for the rent on the bounce. He makes sure to not exceed three meters in altitude, but that's just old M.I. caution more than anything else.


"Affirmative, Lieutenant Hartmann. Your request is granted, and you may rendezvous with biological-analysis unit SSS7-VN1-K9. It is in the tempo shelter."

Going into the tempo shelter finds the standard 010 robot shell hovering over a fossil placed gently upon a metal table. It is surrounded by a halo of slender silver tentacles, each tipped with fine instruments of examination. Strangely enough, SSS7-VN1-K9 seems to exude an air of fussiness, of studious fastidiousness, like an aged paeleontologist.

Loa soon arrived at the vent. It extended before him, the starship seeming larger than ever before, and its craggy mouth seemed like a gaping black maw, stretching out to devour him. The starship was a dirthy colour of tarnished silver-black, dark as the Plutonian night and yet bright and glorious as a day on Mercury. Its hull seemed to radiate strength even now, lying prone and halfway buried in Plutonian regolith, and it soon became apparent that its hardness was unmatched by any substance ever before seen on earth. And yet it was buckled and ripped by ancient explosions and titanic stresses. What had happened to this comatose giant?

After a minute of computation the gensoft comes up with a combination. Data spools across a holographic display, a spectral, rainbow nucleotide strand assembling itself in the middle of the air. It is astonishingly repetitive, as it is formed according to the pattern. And yet it was astonishingly beautiful as well, each word and symbol falling into perfect order. What remained to be discovered, though, was exactly what the message said... the patterns and formations were exactly correct, and the previous jumble (or so would it have appeared to humans) fell into order and humanlike symmetry. Yet the meaning itself was still in the air - the gensoft merely put some sense of order into it.
"Good job, Sergeant," al Kashim beamed, "you've taken a difficult problem and made it into a simpler one."

"Frightening idea, sir--four possible combinations per character in three characters means four to the third or sixty-four possible permeutations for each amino-acid coding sequence."

"But there's only about twenty or thirty amino acids, right?"

"Twenty naturally occuring in Earth biospheres, sir. However, four to the second--sixteen--permeutations are obviously not enough."

"So... if we call an amino-acid coding structure a word, then we only get sixty-four words?"

"Exactly, sir."

"Hmm... first let's try parsing amino-acid codes as words. Standard crypto style, work on repetition and word order. Curious, though, how these extrasolars read--we were lucky to have found that."

"Indeed."

"Affirmative, Lieutenant Hartmann. Your request is granted, and you may rendezvous with biological-analysis unit SSS7-VN1-K9. It is in the tempo shelter."

Going into the tempo shelter finds the standard 010 robot shell hovering over a fossil placed gently upon a metal table. It is surrounded by a halo of slender silver tentacles, each tipped with fine instruments of examination. Strangely enough, SSS7-VN1-K9 seems to exude an air of fussiness, of studious fastidiousness, like an aged paeleontologist.
Larch stepped forward in the temp-shelter while taking off his helmet (assuming the room is pressurized). "Are you SSS7-VN1-K9? I am Technical Sergeant Rolf Larch, member of the biology department aboard Thunder Child. If I may ask, what have you found so far and how can I help?"

Lieutenant Hartmann leaves her NCO to his duties and, sitting with legs folded on the floor, puts the portable computer control to the spider-scout on her lap. "Private Loa, are you on station?"

Loa soon arrived at the vent. It extended before him, the starship seeming larger than ever before, and its craggy mouth seemed like a gaping black maw, stretching out to devour him. The starship was a dirthy colour of tarnished silver-black, dark as the Plutonian night and yet bright and glorious as a day on Mercury. Its hull seemed to radiate strength even now, lying prone and halfway buried in Plutonian regolith, and it soon became apparent that its hardness was unmatched by any substance ever before seen on earth. And yet it was buckled and ripped by ancient explosions and titanic stresses. What had happened to this comatose giant?
Wafting away a moment of poetic thought, Loa walked up to the rent. "On station, ma'am."

"Ack," came over his headset as the spider-scout twitched in his hands, legs slowly gyrating to catch ground. A small light fixture in the front activated, casting a soft white light onto the hull of the derelict. Loa tilted the scout up to get a good view of the rent, then kneeled down on one knee and gingerly let the scout find the ground with its legs before letting go.

"Scout inserted, ma'am. New orders?" Loa stood back up as he saw the remote-piloted scout skitter away into the ship.

"Stay on station and prepare to drop transmission repeater relays. The hull absorbs energy, so they said."

"On station, ma'am?" Loa looked up at the maw of the rent. "Alone? Sorry, but my trooper blood says that's not such a good idea."

"Fine, call up reinforcement from the sergeant back at camp. Just place a repeater inside for now and another one outside the rent."

"Ack, ma'am." Disengaging a quadrahedral pyramid from his backpack with transceiver spikes at its points, Loa tossed the caltrop-esque repeater into the maw and watched it clatter silently to a stop on the inside. After dropping a second one at his feet, he called up to his sergeant. "Sarge, Loa here. The Ell-Tee wants me to go wandering around in the spaceship alone to make sure her little 'bot doesn't lose signal. Seems to defeat the purpose of having a havin' a scout in the first place."

***

Back where Nashim and al Kashim are working on translating, Sergeant Jamieson sighs and taps Private Hofstadner. "Mark, it looks like you get to accompany Tim. On the bounce, trooper." He grinned.

Picking himself up, Private Marcus Hofstadner nods and dons his helmet. "On the bounce, sir." He jogs out of the shelter and immediately starts thrusting towards the dig site to meet up with the waiting Loa, navigating via transponder signal.

"So... if we call an amino-acid coding structure a word, then we only get sixty-four words?"

"Exactly, sir."

"Hmm... first let's try parsing amino-acid codes as words. Standard crypto style, work on repetition and word order. Curious, though, how these extrasolars read--we were lucky to have found that."

"Indeed."


Some time later, and with much computer resource use, they come up with a fragmented jargon of words that are roughly translatable to English.

" … and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.
… and ... turned into blood like that … a dead … and every living thing in the sea died.
… and springs of water, and they became blood. 5Then in charge of the waters say:
'You are just in these judgments,
you who are … who were, the...' "

Larch stepped forward in the temp-shelter while taking off his helmet (assuming the room is pressurized). "Are you SSS7-VN1-K9? I am Technical Sergeant Rolf Larch, member of the biology department aboard Thunder Child. If I may ask, what have you found so far and how can I help?"

(OOC: The room is pressurised)

http://www.balmoralsoftware.com/dig/skeleton.jpg

The construct looks up, as absentminded an expression as a robot construct can make upon its 'face'.

"Oh? Oh yes, you must be that Scolopendran. Yes, well the - err - fossil which we've found is one of about one hundred such fossils. Its flesh is highly degraded - this is probably due to the cosmic radiation and such. However it seems that the bones themselves are heavily laced with minerals - especially silicon. As Pluto does not have liquid water, it is probable that metals are naturally high in this species. There is no identifiable DNA as of yet, but we have seen a few of such fossils inside the wreck, which happened to be in some sort of water-filled chambre at the very fore of the ship. This chambre froze the creatures, preserving them in their state..."

Back where Nashim and al Kashim are working on translating, Sergeant Jamieson sighs and taps Private Hofstadner. "Mark, it looks like you get to accompany Tim. On the bounce, trooper." He grinned.

Picking himself up, Private Marcus Hofstadner nods and dons his helmet. "On the bounce, sir." He jogs out of the shelter and immediately starts thrusting towards the dig site to meet up with the waiting Loa, navigating via transponder signal.

(okay. He gets there without much ado )

The Master Sergeant folds his armored arms as he turns to Commander al Kashim. "I would take it under advisement, sir. Whatever destroyed that vessel may still be a threat."

"After 59 million years? The only threats we know of that would be that patient didn't even exist that long ago."

(OOC: How did they get words out of a genetic sequence?)

Later on, general: "We understand that they glyphs have been determined to encode genetic structures. May we have a copy of the sequence, so as to execute each possible permutation of the code with all known nucleotides? We are interested in what sorts of life-forms may result."

The first delegate specifically: "Would it be possible to acquire samples of the fossils found, as well as any genetic fragments turned up in the exploration?'

OOC: They got it by finding the order which they were arranged by putting them into a genetic sequence.

SSS7-VN1-K9 nods, going to a small vial.

"I have isolated what I could, but the genetic samples are immensely degraded due to the cosmic radiation. I'm afraid this is the best I could piece together."

Some time later, and with much computer resource use, they come up with a fragmented jargon of words that are roughly translatable to English.

" … and ugly and painful sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped his image.
… and ... turned into blood like that … a dead … and every living thing in the sea died.
… and springs of water, and they became blood. 5Then in charge of the waters say:
'You are just in these judgments,
you who are … who were, the...' "
al Kashim scratched the back of his head. "Odd... sounds like a description of the Hour of Doom. Too bad I've forgotten a bit of my Qu'ran. Maybe it resembles the Christian scriptures?"

"No... they tend to emphasize the annihilation of thirds, and the plague of locust-induced sores comes after the seas of blood in those. The 'just in judgements' makes it sound like the Qu'ran... but I can't remember any passages that fit. Also, there are a great deal of segments missing; analogizing it to our own religions is probably fallacious."

"Still... it sounds religious or at least mythical in nature. Why would it be on a bit of plating? Inscription on a wall, maybe?"

"Honestly, sir, we don't have enough to go on. I suggest meeting up with the team at the dig site."

"Good call, Nashim. Sergeant Jaimeson, let's go."

The M.I. get up and follow the commander and Nashim out, following transponder signals to the dig site, aiming to meet up with Lieutenant Hartmann at the temp shelter. They bring along their equipment cart.


[quote="Larch"]The construct looks up, as absentminded an expression as a robot construct can make upon its 'face'.

"Oh? Oh yes, you must be that Scolopendran. Yes, well the - err - fossil which we've found is one of about one hundred such fossils. Its flesh is highly degraded - this is probably due to the cosmic radiation and such. However it seems that the bones themselves are heavily laced with minerals - especially silicon. As Pluto does not have liquid water, it is probable that metals are naturally high in this species. There is no identifiable DNA as of yet, but we have seen a few of such fossils inside the wreck, which happened to be in some sort of water-filled chambre at the very fore of the ship. This chambre froze the creatures, preserving them in their state..."
"Has any attempt been made to access those fossils, sir... ma'am...? Sorry, but which honorific would you prefer? It's a hard habit to break."

With Hofstadner and Loa at the rent, Lieutenant Hartmann pilots the little spider-scout around.

"Ahh... 'unit' or 'doctor' should suffice. Strange that English does not have a neuter honorific... but I digress.

No, no attempt has been made to access these fossils. They have only just been discovered."

---

The scout enters the rent and the starship seems to loom all around, a complete blackness, save for about ten metres in, which the outside lights penetrate. The scout's light illuminates the area in front of it.

It is strewn with debris and fragments of metal. Rocks are all about. There are no pipes, rather the starship has an interior that seems to be made of some sort of yellowish crystalline material, forming a smooth, circular corridor, ridged with ribbed sections. It seems immensely strong. There is no indicator as to what is 'up' or 'down'

Further inwards there is an intersection in the corridor, with a passagageway perpendicular to the corridor, leading upwards at a 45 degree angle. The main corridor proceedes onwards.

Suddenly there is a crackle and a momentary burst of static. The signal is interfered with for a moment for no perceptible reason and the scout's vision soon returns. And yet it finds itself in a completely different place. No longer is it at the intersection, but somewhere else. It is impossible to get a directional reading, but it finds itself on the floor of a large cylindrical chambre with three levels on the sides of the room, surrounding a tall cylinder of some sort of clear material. It is covered in a sort of dull-reddish webbing material, and inside is a frozen, lime-green sort of stuff.

"Ahh... 'unit' or 'doctor' should suffice. Strange that English does not have a neuter honorific... but I digress.

No, no attempt has been made to access these fossils. They have only just been discovered."
"Then it seems there is little I can do here, Doctor. Excuse me, but before I suggest to the Ell-Tee that we move on to the hulk, has your analysis come up with what form of life the fossils are?"

The scout enters the rent and the starship seems to loom all around, a complete blackness, save for about ten metres in, which the outside lights penetrate. The scout's light illuminates the area in front of it.

It is strewn with debris and fragments of metal. Rocks are all about. There are no pipes, rather the starship has an interior that seems to be made of some sort of yellowish crystalline material, forming a smooth, circular corridor, ridged with ribbed sections. It seems immensely strong. There is no indicator as to what is 'up' or 'down'

Further inwards there is an intersection in the corridor, with a passagageway perpendicular to the corridor, leading upwards at a 45 degree angle. The main corridor proceedes onwards.

Suddenly there is a crackle and a momentary burst of static. The signal is interfered with for a moment for no perceptible reason and the scout's vision soon returns. And yet it finds itself in a completely different place. No longer is it at the intersection, but somewhere else. It is impossible to get a directional reading, but it finds itself on the floor of a large cylindrical chambre with three levels on the sides of the room, surrounding a tall cylinder of some sort of clear material. It is covered in a sort of dull-reddish webbing material, and inside is a frozen, lime-green sort of stuff.
"Well, that was unexpected." Lieutenant Hartmann scratches the back of her head. "That cylinder is interesting; too bad the scout is just a set of eyes. Still..." She runs an infrared and electromagnetic imaging scan on the cylinder to see if it radiates; a small amount of spectography should also indicate its composition.

The rest of the party from the home base (Commander al Kashim, TSgt Nashim, MSgt Jamieson, and the two other privates) get to the temp shelter as quickly as they can at an easy doubletime jog.

"Then it seems there is little I can do here, Doctor. Excuse me, but before I suggest to the Ell-Tee that we move on to the hulk, has your analysis come up with what form of life the fossils are?"

"It's a vertebrate, that much I know, but it doesn't much resemble very many terrestrial life-forms. The flippers and tail"- it points with one slim silver tentacle - "seem to suggest an oceangoing animal - perhaps a mammal or ichthyoid. The fluid-filled fore chambre would reinforce this argument. Its developed thorax cavity suggests either large lungs or advanced internal organs, and the immense strength of the bones, combined with a strong honeycomb-like structure suggests that these organisms are adapted for living under extreme liquid pressure."

"Well, that was unexpected." Lieutenant Hartmann scratches the back of her head. "That cylinder is interesting; too bad the scout is just a set of eyes. Still..." She runs an infrared and electromagnetic imaging scan on the cylinder to see if it radiates; a small amount of spectography should also indicate its composition.

The rest of the party from the home base (Commander al Kashim, TSgt Nashim, MSgt Jamieson, and the two other privates) get to the temp shelter as quickly as they can at an easy doubletime jog.

Running a spectography scan suggests... chlorophyll! And a preponderance of long-chain organic molecules. And a sort of alcohol-like liquid in deep freeze? Glycerine perhaps? No other emissions or radiation.

At the Temp Shelter
Commander al Kashim pokes his head in. "So, how are we doing?"

Lieutenant Hartmann looks up from her portable computer. "Not too poorly, sir. I've lost track of my spider-scount's position in the hulk, but I've also found evidence of chlorophyll and possible life."

"How did you lose track of its position?"

"I dunno. Comms shorted for a moment and when they popped back up the scout was somewhere else. Might have fallen down a shaft or something."

"I don't like it. You have two M.I. on station? Tell 'em to set up a ring of trancievers around the hulk. We can triangulate using them later."

"Acting, sir."

The commander looks up at Tech Sergeant Larch. "How's it coming, our resident biologist?" He grins behind the faceplate of his suit.

"Excuse me, Doctor," Larch says as he turns to his commanding officer. "Touching base with the local authority, sir, but not much else. One can't figure out a great deal from some old bones without a lot of analysis. However, our good Doctor here"--he indicates the construct--"tells me there's some specimen in cryo somewhere in the fore of the hulk."

"Can you accomplish anything else here?"

"Not really, sir, no."

"Understood. Lieutenant, pack it up and patch the scout to your snoopers or something, we're heading to the hulk."

Hartmann nods, folds up the portable computer, and plugs it into her suit-comp after affixing it to her utility belt. The portcomp is about the size of a laptop but armored; it'll be fine there. "Are you sure walking right on in is wise, sir?"

"No, not really," al Kashim mutters, "especially after Sergeant Nashim and I translated that block. It's all religious doom-n'-gloom, End of Days stuff. Still, it's why we're here. Now let's get on the bounce."

Looking up at the construct as his subordinates ready their suits, al Kashim bows. "Thank you, Doctor, for hosting my people. I'll be sure to get Larch give you any data he finds. In fact, we could use someone to run telemetry... could you assist?"

At the Hulk
The two mobile infantrymen quickly set up a ring of transcievers. "Well, that's done. Now what?"

"I guess we wait."

"Sir.. you might want to see this..." A diplomatic office secretary walks in and tosses the file on his desk, "They've found something you might be interested in on pluto."

"Pluto, didn't we say we claimed the dark side of pluto?" The Emperor inquired.

"Yes sir. That is why we figured we should tell you." The secretary nodded.

"Well, what an interesting discovery.. how apocalyptic.. send Star's Shadow to Pluto's shadow. Tell him to observe and to request direct contact with all... objects of interest uncovered." The Emperor spoke into a com to ASC (Air and Space Command).

"Aye, sir." The voice responded swiftly.

The EODS Star's Shadow, a carrier class capitol ship, calculates the jump distance to the shadow of pluto.. and readys to make the leap as it passes through the shadow of the moon. Finally, it fades from view.. appearing mere momments later in pluto's shade...

Imperial God Maelstrom Vortex,
The Empire of Draconic States Website (http://www.freewebs.com/vortex79/index.htm)
(Not a Puppet Region, Certified by Scolo der Game Mod)

EODS DEFCON LEVEL: 5 (General Peace and Recreation)
National Anthem: Roll Tide - Nightwish
http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/dragonisia.jpg

After a few days of sifting through the DNA fragments, matching physiological and genetic traits to known forms of life and using that info to fill in the gaps, and generally trying to reconstruct on of these turtly aliens, the Crana believed that it/they had created a reasonable facsimile of the original organism. Several ganglia were relegated to forming an incubation chamber in which to grow several possible versions of the creature.

After arriving at Pluto.. some hours later.. the Star's Shadow.. suddenly jerks in orbit and starts to list. It is not known what has caused it to shut down, but it does not re-start. It begins to drift towards pluto under the effects of gravity...

"Why certainly. I would be most delighted to help you."

Pluto Orbit
After arriving at Pluto.. some hours later.. the Star's Shadow.. suddenly jerks in orbit and starts to list. It is not known what has caused it to shut down, but it does not re-start. It begins to drift towards pluto under the effects of gravity...
"FleetCom," Flag Captain Takahashi calmly ordered aboard Thunder Child, "divert Warspite to grab that ship and tow it into a safe orbit."

One of the four Puma-class destroyers broke from formation and began grappling Star Shadow, transmitting all the while: "This is Triumvirate destroyer Warspite, attempting to assist. Please respond."

Dig Site
"Why certainly. I would be most delighted to help you."
"Thank you, Doctor." With that, Commander al Kashim gathers his party outside the temp shelter and they go as one to the rent, meeting up with the two M.I. there.

"What now, sir?"

al Kashim points into the maw of the rent. "No way to go but in." And so they enter the hulk.

And so do they descend into the maw of the beast. The slope is slightly steep, but the curving, ribbed walls of the spaceship make for easy descent. It is dark, and cold - colder even than the Plutonian abyss outside. Bits of debris and metal can be seen strewn all about, and the walls seem to be melted in some places, by internal and external explosions. Some holes seem to be twisted out of shape, bent into strange contortions for which there are no physical explanations. Some seem to be caused by both internal and external explosions at the same time. Some walls are riddled with holes and burns, whilst others remain strangely, and unusually perfect - almost crystalline. There is something about the ship that seems to absorb light beyond many metres ahead, as if it were filled with black velvet...

"Eyes peeled, people. No need for unnecessary falls." al Kashim looks around.

As if on cue, Sergeant Larch slips on something. "Safety! Pain and damnation!"

"Are you okay, Sergeant?"

"Fine, sir, just fine. Ego is bruised, that's all."

"Lieutenant, how are you coming with that spider-scout?"

"I'm still trying to get triangulation data now. I'm holding it at that chlorophyll-filled tank thing for now."

al Kashim turns to the M.I. sergeant who looks carefully at the holes. "What's your take on the destruction, Sergeant?"

"I dunno, sir. It screams 'firefight' to me"--he taps the stock of his shouldered pulse laser rifle--"but then again that's how I've been trained to think."

"Lieutenant, what do you think?"

Hartmann takes a look at the rents and then carefully pokes her helmet into some of the larger ones to look for conduits and what not that might have ruptured.

Triangulation data comes back. Apparently the spider scout is currently nine hundred fifty five metres away, to the left and downwards. Odd, because nine-hundred fifty-five metres is far longer than the width of the starship measured from outside.

Checking the damage indicates that the holes and ruptures initially appears to be immense heat, but at closer inspection, they appear to be somehow warped, and not burnt or blown apart...

Triangulation data comes back. Apparently the spider scout is currently nine hundred fifty five metres away, to the left and downwards. Odd, because nine-hundred fifty-five metres is far longer than the width of the starship measured from outside.
Lieutenant Hartmann relays this to al Kashim; he only looks confused. "What, a TARDIS ship? Odd."

Checking the damage indicates that the holes and ruptures initially appears to be immense heat, but at closer inspection, they appear to be somehow warped, and not burnt or blown apart...
"Normally I'd say plasma burns, sir, but it isn't burnt. My thought is that the plating itself is a conduit; once it distorts slightly the energy ramming into the distorted crystalline structure forces it to distend even more until it explodes, like this."

al Kashim nods. "Well, only way to go is forward. Let's see if we can't catch up with the spider-scout.

As they proceede forward, Larch notices something seem to move somewhere on the ceiling of the corridor. It may have been a falling piece of metal or light catching off a crystal, perhaps, yet it flickered quickly and disappeared before one's eye could easily see it.

As they proceede forward, Larch notices something seem to move somewhere on the ceiling of the corridor. It may have been a falling piece of metal or light catching off a crystal, perhaps, yet it flickered quickly and disappeared before one's eye could easily see it.
"Hold up;" Larch holds out his arm, "I think I saw something."

"Where, Sergeant?"

Larch points, his hand waving to encompass the general vicinity. "Up there."

"Okay, guys, snoopers down. Check EM and IR sigs."

If nothing shows up, they proceed on.

The only thing left is a slight-residual heat signature. Closer inspection shows molecular disruption synonymous to that of x-rays or gamma radiation. No traces of anything anywhere - nothing living at any rate.

All of a sudden, seemingly without any reason, the spider-scout disappears.

Disappears somewhere else.

Hartmann taps her computer. "Sir, I've lost contact with the scout again."

"Again? What were you doing with it?"

"Nothing. I just had it sitting there to mark where that cylinder thing is."

"Well, let's just keep heading for the cylinder, then."

With some time they arrive at the exact location. The room is large and rectangular, with large cylinders lining the western walls. However, there is no sign of the single large cylinder, or the spider. Within the cylinders lie a frozen greenish stuff, but other than that, nothing is in the room. It seems almost completely different from what the scout reported.

"Is this creeping anyone else out?" Private Loa murmured into his throat-mic, armored gauntlet tapping the stock of his pulse rifle.

"Keep calm, Private," growled Master Sergeant Jamieson, "just keep your eyes wide wile the zoomies here do their job."

The M.I. take up defensive positions near the entry points, with the sergeant in the middle keeping an eye on the science staff. Nashim and Larch use ultrasonic scanners and spectrometers to find out the composition of the cylinders and what's inside. al Kashim wanders around to look for more things to read, translation matrix ready by his side, and Hartmann just tries to figure out where the hell her spider-scout went.

The cylinders turn out to be made of a strange composite material designed to let most light in and out, but at the same time, to be highly resilient. Tensile strength measures at approximately 6,520.25 gigapascals. Within they find a preponderance of chlorophyll - the substance made of approximately 85% chlorophyll. Over each cylinder was a metal inscription made upon a fluidic bronzeish metal. Each inscription was the same one.

"“Behold now Behemoth, which I made with thee… his strength in his loins, his force ... of his belly… the sinews of his stones are ... together… his bones strong pieces of brass; his bones like bars of iron… Surely the mountains bring him forth food, ... beasts of the field play… he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up ... mouth. He taketh it with his eyes: his ... pierceth through ...”


As to the spider scout - there is simply no explaining as to where it went. It seems to have compltely vanished...

Anyone care to make a sum up of what has happend so far? Ive ben away for three weeks.

(OOC: Basically, we've been wandering about on the inside... open and shut.)

"So," Sergeant Larch opens his mouth, "what's it say, sir?"

"More religiosity." al Kashim reads the inscription word-for-word. "Any reads on it?"

"Maybe it describes the purposes of these vats." Nashim taps one with a armored hard-suit finger.

"What's in the vat, Sergeants?"

Larch taps his visor. "Chlorophyll, sir. 85 percent cholorophyll."

"Purpose?"

"Chlorophyll's main biological purpose is to form simple monosaccharides... fructose... out of sunlight and availiable CHON. Maybe we're looking at a simple fuel supply or life support system."

Lieutenant Hartmann throws her arms up. "Spider-scout's lost, sir. Just gone."

At that announcement, the M.I. get slightly more tense. "Gone? Out of this room? There's no sign of movement."

Hartmann shakes her head. "Not vital. If this thing is a ship system, there has to be some way to get to the goo inside." Hartmann starts using her ship-design skills to find some sort of valve or access panel that could gain access to the chlorophyll-stuff.

(OOC: Basically, we've been wandering about on the inside... open and shut.)
Yeah I ghattered that so far. But I mean. What finds have ben made?

(O.O.C Bah, it's probably to late to join in, but during Tor Yvresse's War with NGEN corp, we took a very wrong turn and ended up here, and some more powerful nations told me to get my ass back up here and bring them back some fossils, they would handle it themselves but they're too busy, yada, yada. Then they mentioned pay. And I scrambled men)

"Sir, we are picking up transistor settings." Ltnt Arunsun switched on the radio.

"Excellent. Hail them."

-Begin Transmission-

Attention fellow explorers. We extend greetings on behalf of the Principality of Roania, and request permission to land. I am Captain Stone of the corvette Rambutan. I have been sent by RCO Black to see if there is any life up here, and also to find fossils. My crew consists of 6 crewmen, 44 Roanian Zero-G Troopers, and 3 RCIA Agents. We do not come empty handed to the table. We are bringing enough food ration pills for 200 men for 100 days. While some of you may dislike food ration pills, you must all accept the fact that they are incredibly useful. We also bring drinking water, enough for 200 men for 70 days. While not much, it is the best we can do. I have also been authorised to pay 45 million rupees (There is unidentified grumbling, and complaints about how it's a waste of Lady Stuart's dowry. There is the sound of a gun shot) for any fossils found. And make that 5 crewmen. Again, I request permission to land. Rambutan out.

-End Transmission-

"Captain, will they allow us to land?" RCIA Agent 1532 asked.

"I don't know. If not, then we land anyway, and try our own luck"

"That's the spirit."

(OOC: Basically, we've been wandering about on the inside... open and shut.)
Yeah I ghattered that so far. But I mean. What finds have ben made?
Not much. We've got green chlorophyll goo. And I can read the language, but it's all Biblical stuff.

--Scolo

To Roania: "You are cleared to land. Welcome. We're glad to have you on the team!"

*The corvette lands near the transmitters*

Captain Stone: All right men, exit. Be prepared for hostiles...

*All the Zero-G troopers bring their rifles to bear, but keep the barrels down so that it's not overtly threatening. The RCIA Agents just smile.*

Captain Stone: Droids! Bring the supplies out.

LRR will send a group of five Astrobiologists in one of our Aries Spacecraft.

http://www.strafe.com/2001/Aries.jpg

The aries being dropped to the Plutonic surface from orbit.

"This is Aries Alpha to Pluto re-entry control, we request permission to land. We carry five astrobiologists to aid the excavation."

BUMP

MEGA BUMPUTY UMPITY BUMP!

*The corvette lands near the transmitters*

Captain Stone: All right men, exit. Be prepared for hostiles...

*All the Zero-G troopers bring their rifles to bear, but keep the barrels down so that it's not overtly threatening. The RCIA Agents just smile.*

Captain Stone: Droids! Bring the supplies out.

{ data feed to Roania }

{ begin unitySpeech; setMode[diplomatic] }

{ ::

"Weapons will not be neccessary. There are no hostiles - the hulk is quite dead, and there are no signs of weaponry. It shows signs of weapons damage, but it is dated to be at least 59 million years old."

:: }

{ data feed to Lunatic Retard Robots }

{ begin unitySpeech; setMode[diplomatic] }

{ ::

"You have been cleared to land at landing site RCA Three RS1. Thank you for your assistance."

:: }


{ end unitySpeech; endMode }

{ end transmission }

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/010.jpg

Unity, MCP; 010, EI Republic of,

Captain Stone: All right, men. Weapons down. Let's go see what they've discovered.

Three more Snels in vacuum suits exited their ship. One headed directly for the wreck. The other two were hauling a large tank towards the main research building, and would join the first later.

As Hartmann begins to check the pods, she finds that they are covered in a sort of silvery filigree working, which snake over the opaque parts. Laced in with the filigree lines are strange greyish knobs with no markings, and the silver lines seem to wrap about them. They seem to be aesthetic designs. Touching them seems to have no effect. The cylinders are placed at a 75 degree angle to the wall and the floor. No energy signs can be seen from them. They seem completely frozen - lifeless.

As Hartmann began her investigation, Larch saw a bright point of light appear, bobbing distantly in the corridor at the end of the room (there are three corridors in this room, one leading in from the side, which they entered from, and two at either ends of the rectangle). It was clearer this time, and remained for a bit longer. He felt a strange shiver go down his back.

Al Kashim suddenly perceives the inscriptions above the cylinders to be somehow changed. Different. The characters are the same, in the same place, but he can't escape the feeling that they are somehow not the same, that they have changed all of a sudden to mean something different.

---

*bump*?

The Snel soon meets with a large scientific-research construct, toting eight separate manipulator arms, each tipped in some sort of delicate instrument. Atop a craning neck sat a large optical sensor, like a single glassy black eye on a metal stalk. A synthesized voice crackled over the radio.

"I am DRX1-ER9-F2. I specialise in spacevehicle engineering, and was about to make an excursion into the Starship. Would you like to accompany me?"

---

The Roanian party meets with the first construct that greeted the Scolopendran team, and they are led inside the main habitation dome and given a basic briefing on the starship.

(refer back a few pages to see it)

As Hartmann begins to check the pods, she finds that they are covered in a sort of silvery filigree working, which snake over the opaque parts. Laced in with the filigree lines are strange greyish knobs with no markings, and the silver lines seem to wrap about them. They seem to be aesthetic designs. Touching them seems to have no effect. The cylinders are placed at a 75 degree angle to the wall and the floor. No energy signs can be seen from them. They seem completely frozen - lifeless.
"I can't get into it, sir. No noninvasive access method." Hartmann steps back and scowls behind her clear plastic faceplate.

Nashim pulls a fusion torch out of the equipment cart. "Maybe this will help." She hands it to Hartmann, who fires it up and begins attempting to carefully cut into one of the pods.

As Hartmann began her investigation, Larch saw a bright point of light appear, bobbing distantly in the corridor at the end of the room (there are three corridors in this room, one leading in from the side, which they entered from, and two at either ends of the rectangle). It was clearer this time, and remained for a bit longer. He felt a strange shiver go down his back.
"Smeg." Larch blinks a few times, then attempts to rub his eyes. His gloved fists only rub against his visor. "Guys, I saw something again. That corridor." He points.

"Just great," the Mobile Infantry master sergeant growls, "snoopers down, troopers. EM, IR, radar, ultrasonic. We aren't going to be caught by surprise by any spooks. Where the hell is an OPO man when you need one?"

Al Kashim suddenly perceives the inscriptions above the cylinders to be somehow changed. Different. The characters are the same, in the same place, but he can't escape the feeling that they are somehow not the same, that they have changed all of a sudden to mean something different.
My mind is playing tricks on me. He attempts to translate the inscriptions again, but using a different method. Much as a diagram on a flat page can be made to look like it's alternately sticking out of and recessed into the page, maybe he's just had a subconscious realization of a different way to read the text.

"Nashim, check the transmitter on the cart to make sure we've got clear signal to the temp habitat outside and that we're still running telemetry data." She does so.

"I can't get into it, sir. No noninvasive access method." Hartmann steps back and scowls behind her clear plastic faceplate.

Nashim pulls a fusion torch out of the equipment cart. "Maybe this will help." She hands it to Hartmann, who fires it up and begins attempting to carefully cut into one of the pods.


The torch splatters off on contact, spraying energy about, the glass seeming to deflect anything that hits it...

"Smeg." Larch blinks a few times, then attempts to rub his eyes. His gloved fists only rub against his visor. "Guys, I saw something again. That corridor." He points.

"Just great," the Mobile Infantry master sergeant growls, "snoopers down, troopers. EM, IR, radar, ultrasonic. We aren't going to be caught by surprise by any spooks. Where the hell is an OPO man when you need one?"

They detect nothing. Not even residual energy signatures. No thermals, no infra-red, no electromagnetics, nothing. As if nothing had been there. Larch sees it again, floating gently and immediately disappearing around the corner.

My mind is playing tricks on me. He attempts to translate the inscriptions again, but using a different method. Much as a diagram on a flat page can be made to look like it's alternately sticking out of and recessed into the page, maybe he's just had a subconscious realization of a different way to read the text.

Kashim's alternate translation method gives a spool of numbers:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795...

"Nashim, check the transmitter on the cart to make sure we've got clear signal to the temp habitat outside and that we're still running telemetry data." She does so.

Signal's clear, and everything seems to be working correctly.

The torch splatters off on contact, spraying energy about, the glass seeming to deflect anything that hits it...
"Whoa now." Hartmann kills the fusion torch flame. "Damn, I've never seen anything do that before. "I think getting a sample of whatever is inside is a lost cause." She stows the tool back in the cart.

"Agreed, Lieutenant." al Kashim shakes his head. "This is not going as well as expected."

They detect nothing. Not even residual energy signatures. No thermals, no infra-red, no electromagnetics, nothing. As if nothing had been there. Larch sees it again, floating gently and immediately disappearing around the corner.
"Snoopers are blank, sir."

"Keep 'em down," Master Sergeant Jamieson grumbles, "and keep your eyes open and your mouthes shut. Pardon, sarge,"--he looks to Larch--"but are you sure you're seeing things? Real things?"

"Yeah... I'm seeing things... dunno if they're real or not. It's this... floating thing that appears--it just went around the corner over there."

"Well, either you're insane or a special talent in disguise, sarge."

Kashim's alternate translation method gives a spool of numbers:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795...
"Hey, Nashim, check this out." al Kashim points at the inscription. "Pi."

Examining the output of the translation matrix, she nods. "Odd. So it's mystic jargon in one mode and mathmatics in the other. How many decimals is it running pi to? That's a good approximation of their computational power."

Signal's clear, and everything seems to be working correctly.
"At least something is working light." al Kashim sighs. "Larch, Hartmann, each of you take up a cart. Nashim, play with that matrix while we walk. We're going to go chasing ghosts."

Lance Jamieson nods. "Alright, apes--Hofstadner, Loa, you're with me on point. Kincaid, Mossawi, take drag." The M.I. surround the naval personnel, three in front, two in back, as they head down the corridor. "Loa, throw a tranciever relay here so we can keep track."

Before he goes to join the point-force, Loa turns and tosses a triangular pyramid into the middle of the room. "Chasing ghosts--I didn't sign up for this."

"Shut up and get on the bounce, trooper."

Captain Stone: Understood, sir. Now, where would you like my men? Don't worry, these are some of the finest soldiers ever to be created by cloning.

It is calculated that the decimals run to approximately 3^141592653589 digits.

As they head down the corridor Nashim sees that the walls seem to be covered in a fine mesh of phosphorescent green lines. They curl about greyish, unmarked knobs and pustules. As they reach the corner a large fossil lies before her, upon the floor, much of it quite dessicated, and the greyish black skin seeming to wrap about the bones like a thin paper.

Loa's radio transceiver crackles for less than a microsecond, just audible enough for him to hear it.

Larch does not see any traces of the floating thing. The corridor is completely bare of details, save for the same similar pattern that covers the walls of the rest of the starship.

Kincaid's atmospheric sensor begins to bleep, warning that the carbon dioxide level is getting somewhat high.

As they head down the corridor Nashim sees that the walls seem to be covered in a fine mesh of phosphorescent green lines. They curl about greyish, unmarked knobs and pustules. As they reach the corner a large fossil lies before her, upon the floor, much of it quite dessicated, and the greyish black skin seeming to wrap about the bones like a thin paper.
"What do you think of those green lines?" Nashim asks.

"What green lines?"

"Apparently I'm seeing things as well." She describes the mesh in detail. "It looks like an integrity indicator of some sort, seeing how they move around but do not touch flaws."

"Now I really wish we had brought a psi-boy."

Nashim nods. "Now... does anyone else see that corpse?"

Loa's radio transceiver crackles for less than a microsecond, just audible enough for him to hear it.
"Audio contact!"

"What?"

"I heard something, sir."

"What was it?"

"Dunno."

Larch does not see any traces of the floating thing. The corridor is completely bare of details, save for the same similar pattern that covers the walls of the rest of the starship.
"Now everyone else is hallucinating."

Kincaid's atmospheric sensor begins to bleep, warning that the carbon dioxide level is getting somewhat high.
"There's actually an atmosphere in here? Keep buttoned up, people, CO2 level is increasing."

"I am DRX1-ER9-F2. I specialise in spacevehicle engineering, and was about to make an excursion into the Starship. Would you like to accompany me?"

"Quite. Let us proceed."

Kincaid's internal CO2 monitor.

Kincaid's internal CO2 monitor.
Well, that's different then.

Kincaid paused in her battle armor. "Hrm... my CO2's getting high. Anyone have a spare scrubber?"

"Sure, Corporal." Larch pulls a cylindrical tube out of a cart, walks behind Kincaid, and quickly swaps the two.

"Thanks, Sarge. Much weirdness be afoot here."

"By the pricking of my thumbs," Private Hofstadner mumbles in as eerie a voice he can manage, "something wicked this way comes." He suppresses a chuckle at the end of the quote.

"Oh," Master Sergeant Jamieson snarls, "do please shut up."

Continuing down the corridor they find themselves befronted by a vast room, which seems to extend for hundreds of kilometres upwards. Dominating the centre is a massive triangle, made entirely of gold, covered in strange markings. Its surface is shiny and polished, a jewel in a sea of black, and seems to be still slightly ... liquid. The triangle seems the size of the room when they enter, but as they approach it, it seems to decrease, like perspective in reverse, until as they reach approximately ten metres from it. It is exactly nine metres tall, four metres wide, and one metre thick. As they get closer, it seems to maintain its size, but they seem to get no closer to it.

All sensors pointed at it do not reveal anything (as if it were absorbing the data from the instruments) other than size, which is perfectly exact. Nine-Four-One.

From far off, there is the sound of children gaily playing and frolicking.

"You hearin' what I'm hearing?" Loa taps one armored gauntlet lightly on the stock of his rifle.

"Yeah." Private Hofstadtner looks around, flipping down his suit's snoopers. "Kids."

"There ain't no kids down here," growls the Sergeant, "so keep yer eyes peeled."

"I just think this just screams OPO job, Sarge..." Loa looks around the giant room, almost expecting Hollywood xenomorphs or something to crawl out.

"Can it, Private."

Sergeant Larch taps his scanner. "Odd... just getting a size reading. Nine by four by one meters."

"First three primes," Nashim mutters.

"Eh?"

"The squares of the first three prime numbers, counting backwards. Three squared is nine, two squared is four, one squared is one."

"Someone's been reading too much Clarke," grumbles Lieutenant Hartmann.

"Okay, people," announces the commander, "Nashim, try to get a reading of this room's size. M.I., set up a perimeter while I look at this glowing triangle." He advances towards it, occasionally checking his personal scanner to see if it starts reading.

The triangle, balanced upon a single tip, seems to get no closer, or become no larger, as the commander advances. It seems fixed in such a way that any move towards it instantly shifts every perspective forward, so that all moves seemed to bring it no farther, or no closer, to the onlooker. The golden lines etched in the triangle seem to have changed, but it might have been a figment of the imagination.

The size scan simply returns but a single, ominous digit.

0

As Loa glanced, a certain strange feeling of deja vu, as though the voices that had come and gone as quickly as the blink of an eye, were somehow familiar to him - to his life.

Loa starts, the voices connecting to childhood memories... his favorite birthday party, when he was seven, a day where everything seemed to go right... Feeling a pressure on his shoulder, he starts again, whirling around on the heel of one armored boot--

"Hey, what's up, Tim?" Armored helmet, no face behind the dark vision-plate... but the soothing voice is that of Corporal Kincaid. Her armored hand rested on Loa's shoulder-armor, composite resting lightly on composite.

"Oi, this place is just creepin me out, Kat." Private Loa shakes his head. "Smegging creepy voices, memories..."

Inside her helmet, Kincaid pulls up Loa's stats as read by the suit's sensors. "Your vitals are kinda off... maybe we should get you back to the base station."

"Naw... it's just nerves, and I'm not going to crack." Loa hisses the last bit through clenched teeth.

Kincaid nods. "Yeah... you're a tough one. I'm still going to call up, just to check the connection." Biting her commline toggle, she sets up a line to the temp-shelter. "Corporal Kincaid to Doctor..."

"Ugh!" Commander al Kashim grumbles as he clips his scanner to a clip on his suit. "Who in the firey pits of Hell made this place... madmen? No rhyme or reason whatsoever!"

Sergeant Kashim shrugs. "Alien mindset, sir. Different logic."

"But logic nonetheless! All the extrasolars we know have some logic... but what logic is in that?" al Kashim points a gloved finger at the triangle.

"I don't know..." Nashim peers into the triangle, trying to understand the patterns, make connections with things she knows...

As Nashim peered into the glowing, liquid metal face of the triangle, the symbols seemed to shift - or rather - she had the gut instinct, the simple feeling that something had subtly changed about the symbols on the triangle. As she concentrated harder, they seemed to flow into one another, and there was a strange flapping noise, like black wings surrounding her. She could see or feel nothing, save for the placid, golden face of the triangle, as if hypnotised by its form...

Suddenly, Nashim was in a different place. It was a white room, ten metres by ten metres by twenty metres, lit with no particular source, but still softly illuminated. The triangle stood there, still balanced upon its point, still ten metres from her, pointing exactly at her field of vision. The symbols and shapes and lines carved into the triangle seemed to morph and change, and out of its liquid gold surface, there came a man in a black pin-striped suit, wearing a black fedora and carrying a long black walking-stick, tipped with an expensive ruby. A monocle was in one eye. He seemed to be about sixty five years old, and he smiled at her.

Loa did not notice Nashim disappear, for he began to feel that subtle feeling of deja vu; that he had already been in this room before. The voices of the children slowly faded, to be replaced with darkness. The feeling of darkness was appalling, frightening, as if the darkness of the black room was the maw of the Leviathan, and that he was merely a little man caught in its path, being sent down its black gullet.

For no reason, the life-signs on his read-outs cut out, and his communicator simply ceased to function. He, however, was still quite alive.

Technical Sergeant Marya Nashim's Perception
Looking around, spinning on her boots, Nashim grimaces. "Commander? Larch? Lieutenant? Anyone?"

Calming herself down, she looks at the odd man with the monocle with a distant, observing look. Probably a form of contact of some sort... mind-reading? "This you should not hear." She turns on her external speakers as she checks the atmosphere reading in this new room. "Who are you, and where am I?" The words are simple interrogatives, no accusation inflected.

Private Timoteo Loa's Perception
Loa waves his arms about, trying to find some bearing in the darkness. "Hey! Where'd everybody go? Where am I?" The crushing weight of being utterly alone, a trillion kilometers out in a starless void, falls on his mind. It's not something human minds like so very much.

Reality
"Tim... TIM!" Kincaid sees Loa's stats blink off of her display, and sees his suit still moving. "Tim, respond!"

Sergeant Jamieson looks over his shoulder. "What's the sitch, Kincaid?"

"Loa's stats flatlined; he's not responding but still standing. Might be a suit fault."

"Not good. Y'hear that, boss?" Jamieson waits for a response from al Kashim. "Boss?"

Commander al Kashim does what can only be described as boggling. One moment, he's looking at Sergeant Nashim, and the next, she's not there anymore, like some first-year film student's poor use of a bump-cut as a special effect. "Dur..."

"Boss?" Lance looks over his other shoulder. "Hey, wasn't Sergeant Nashim standing right over there?"

"Duhhh... yeah... she was..." al Kashim blinks.

"So where'd she go?"

Sergeant Larch looks up. "Wha? Nashim's missing?"

"I was looking right at her... and she disappeared. Off into nowhere!" The commander gesticulates, pointing at where Nashim used to be.

"Sh-it." Jamieson unslings his rifle and flicks on its underslung ramp. "Begging the commander's pardon, but I suggest we get moving."

"Moving where? Without Nashim?"

"We'll find her, but we have to stay on the bounce, and Loa's out of commission. I say we pull back to the temp shelter then organize a retrieval party. Kincaid, take care of Loa... drag him along if you have to."

Commander al Kashim shakes his head. "All right... um... everyone, keep an eye out."

Nashim's sensors show a temperature of -200 degrees Centigrade , with a near vacuum.

"You might call me a traveler, of sorts. The Traveler, if you will, but my friends (that is, if I had any friends) would call me The Elegant Mr. Kardley. Other times I've been called Thoth, Baal, Tlaloc, P'an-ku, Vishnu, the list goes on and on..."

The Traveler seems to have a distant, otherworldly, aloof look on him, even as he stares directly at Nashim, and his dark brown eyes seem to glow as if lit by stars.

**

For no particular reason, Loa feels a sense of calm euphoria, panic driven from his system by a clear wave of white warmth. He feels utter peace, and at the same time, a glorious ecstasy envelops him, the feeling of having learned a great truth, undergone an enlightening epiphany, witnessed some massive revelation of world-shaking proportions.

**

Suddenly Loa's comm systems activated once more, but other than that, it was as if there was nothing inside the suit, or if there was a corpse standing in there.

Nashim's Perception

If it's hard vacuum, I'll leave off the speakers. "So you claim to be a number of terrestrial gods? May I ask why, Mister Kardley?"

Loa's Perception

Ahhhh....

Reality

Kincaid shoulders Loa's limp form as the party moves back the way they came. "He's in a bad way, sir. Unresponsive."

Sergeant Jamieson and Private Hofstadtner advance on point, with Kincaid in with the navy team and Private Mossawi taking drag, all with either pulse laser rifles or powergun pistol sidearms ready. "We're moving as fast as we ought, Corporal. Just keep up."

"Temp Shelter, this is Commander al Kashim. Doc, we need some help here. Please respond."

"No, just to have been called them by some of the people I've known on my travels."

**

No response. It seemed like the signal was blocked. Not even the static of jamming transmissions, just... silence.

Nashim
"No, just to have been called them by some of the people I've known on my travels."
Nashim nods. "So, you have an almost-name and many assigned names... that's not too difficult to understand. So, Mister Kardley, where am I, and where is the rest of my team?"

**


No response. It seemed like the signal was blocked. Not even the static of jamming transmissions, just... silence.
"Temp shelter? Doc? Damn. Signal's getting through."

"Respectfully request we speed up, sir?" Jamieson scans the corridor ahead, snoopers down.

"Hell yeah." The team presses on at a dead run, trying to make their way back by following the line of signal repeaters Loa left behind.

They wind through empty, dead corridors, following the trail that they carefully laid out to guide them back, like a trail of electronic crumbs laid by Hansel and Gretel in space-suits, passing back through the corridors.

Strange. It seemed much longer than when they first made their way in.

Soon they found themselves in a large rectangular room, with strange pods embedded in the walls. The trail of markers led into a corridor that seemed strangely familiar.

All directional monitors ceased to function.

"Aw, bloody hell... compass is out."

"Well, this is that room with the goo we couldn't quite get... if we came into it via that door, then we should leave it by the same."

"Ya, but the room looks practically the same from every door--"

"Hrm... hold up."

The group pauses in the room, slowly collecting their thoughts.

***

Nashim patiently awaits an answer.

Nashim nods. "So, you have an almost-name and many assigned names... that's not too difficult to understand. So, Mister Kardley, where am I, and where is the rest of my team?"


"To put it in terms that you can understand... " the Traveler begins to move around, twirling his walking stick in a comical fashion, "You are here."

He points to her with the stick and then points downwards.

"They are someplace else."

He gestures about with the stick.

Sergeant Nashim starts tapping her foot. "That much is obvious upon cursory observation. If clear answers are not forthcoming concerning position, maybe condition is a better topic for interrogation. How is the rest of the team doing? Are they healthy and whole? What is their current condition?"

The Traveler shrugs mildly.

"They are elsewhere, just as you are. I'm afraid I cannot put the rest into words not only because your methods of communication are insufficient to describe it, but also because your methods of percieving are insufficient to comprehend a description."

The Traveler makes a circle with his walking stick.

"Consider this. You are on this particular manifold of a three-dimensional plane."

He points to the middle of the air.

"Now your friends are here."

He shifts the point of his walking stick slightly to the right.

"And you are here."

He points towards her and gestures downwards with his walking stick.

"Now consider these points which I have drawn on the fourth, fifth, and sixth axes."

He gestures in air again.

"If we translate you, designated as this point." Gestured back to her, "to these certain points on the fourth, fifth, and sixth axes, we find that your new position on the third manifold is not, in fact, any different."

He pauses a moment, holding his chin with the affectation of a schoolteacher deliberating on how to explain a complex concept to a reticient child. His eyes wander back to Nashim.

"So... in position, I have not changed much. However, I have... in a sense, changed positions in several planes I cannot sense sufficiently that I am now no longer in contact with my friends because we are unable to translate ourselves along these planes. Interesting." Nashim taps her left forearm with her right hand.

"Now, a question with much personal interest... why?"

"Something to that extent, yes. But even as you have been physically translated to a higher manifold - from a 3-sphere to an N-sphere - your overall perception of yourself, your mind as it has evolved, is still three-dimensional, which is why you could not sense the diagrammes which I drew, nor would you grasp a basic understanding of the mathematics involved to accurately describe just where you are - hence my ambiguous use of vernacular.

"The reason - now that is the heart of it. I'm afraid I'm not empowered to tell you, but what I can do is give you a little advice."

He leveled his gaze at the astronaut and pointed his walking stick.

"You, and your entire race as a whole, are on the precipice," he drew something in the air, "Some are closer to it than others, and some are about to fall over it, and yet others are going backwards away from it. None have made the final step. Now, I can offer you the secrets of this, I can give you the knowledge of the manifold truths, but this will entail that you step over the edge."

**

Loa returned to reality, but reality was not the same. It was different. He felt different. He could see clearly now - the fog had lifted from his eyes. As if he had wore blinders all his life, and suddenly the blinders were lifted and his atrophied eyes were grafted with cybernetic implants, everything seemed far deeper and refreshed than he remembered.

Communications were restored with him and the team.

**

Nashim's radio crackled, and she could hear voices - human voices - screaming, shouting, panicking. One female voice set forth a bloodcurdling wail, and it was followed by another, and another, and another, seeming to go on endlessly.

"KEEP MOVING, YOU F-CKING MORONS!"

"LOA! OHH GOD NO! LOA!!!"

"HARTMAN! OH JESUS CHRIST WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT? HOW -NO - STAY AWAY- HELP HELP- AAAAAAAAA!"

"HELP ME! HELP ME! OH GOD HELP ME!"

"C'MON DROP EM! WE GOTTA GET- NO! NO! NO!!!!"

It was shot through with a cacophony of wails and moans, daemonic screams, and the sound of gunfire and explosions, and wet sounds like people dying.

Reality (?)
Kincaid looked thoroughly confused under her helmet; not that anyone could see behind the thick armored faceplate. "I'm getting readings back from Loa... looks fine."

"What the hell happened back there, Loa?" Sergeant Jamieson questioned softly.

"I do not know," Loa answers quietly, calmly, "but now I see."

"See what?"

"Everything." The private's voice is preternaturally calm, cool, collected.

"Okay," the M.I. sergeant grumbles to himself, "I'm creeped. Do you know what happened to Nashim?"

"Something has happened to Sergeant Nashim?" Loa cants his head. "I did not know. Maybe if I ponder it, I shall realize more."

"Kincaid," Jamieson mutters, "are you sure that's Loa in that suit?"

"Signs look the same, just... healthier, I guess."

"Well... Loa..." Commander al Kashim sighs, "if you see everything, maybe you can lead us out of here."

Nashim
"What the--" Nashim cringes at the sounds. "Commander, Lieutenant, Larch? Can you hear me?"

She looks up at Kardley. "What the hell is going on?"

"Transaxial translation on the N+ plane results in limited translation between nearby manifolds. Objects moving on lower dimensional axes invariably bisect the paths of future objects, as well as past objects."

**

After what seems to be an hour of walking in the direction opposite the cell-room, they enter out of a corridor and into a large, rectangular enclosure, with strange pods on the sides of the walls, and two corridors at the other end leading in different directions....

Nashim
"Listen..." she mutters to herself, "Billy Pilgrim became unstuck in time."
A little more loudly, she addresses Kardley again. "But future actions are a function of probability; they are not set because they are the the result of current actions. Is there some way I can warn them, prevent it?

"Or..." she gets very quiet, "do I have to stop thinking in terms of linear time? I'm beginning to suspect that the laws of causality may not apply in my current situation."

Reality
Commander al Kashim rubs the back of his helmet. "Great. Either this is an identical room, or the same room. Loa?"

The private addressed merely shrugs serenely.

"All right. Direction-finding gear is out... glorious. This thing is kilometers long... Pluto's magnetic field isn't strong enough for compasses to work. We can either keep wandering around and get more hopelessly lost, or we can camp out."

"If we camp out, sir," Jamieson grumbles, "then whatever snatched Nashim could grab us too."

Hartmann shrugs. "I have a feeling we aren't safe wherever we go; we might as well get some rest now and wander around later."

"Well, Hartmann," al Kashim mutters, "that's our new plan. Let's camp out for now so we don't run around aimlessly."

The explorers sit down, carefully watching the exits as Larch pulls a temporary shelter--basically a bubble tent--out of the equipment cart and sets it up.

Kardley chuckles, shrugging.

"This place is noplace, and anyplace is not. When up is down and down is left, who really knows what's what? Linear time, linear life, and linear Euclidean thought, it's really does show, that nobody knows, what things our creators have wrought."

He walks off into the distance, receding faster than his gentle stroll would imply, twirling his walking stick as he hummed a tune.

Nashim found herself standing in a dark room, and in one corner, under a pile of corroded metal, a small red light blinks. The robot scout...

**

Definitely Reality

A squad of 20 troopers armed with laser rifles file into a short-range passenger vehicle. Their orders are to find out what's happening and either call for reinforcments or capture possible invaders.

"We don't usually get many visitors", one of the troopers remarks.

"Let's hope they're not hostile."

They get their suits on and prepare to launch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A single, small ship sails out of the massive tower that is IP and heads for the point where all of the activity is.



OOC:If you're gonna do something drastic like blow up the planet, don't, we can't get off that fast.

OOC:If you're gonna do something drastic like blow up the planet, don't, we can't get off that fast.
OOC: It might do good to point out that this is all happening prior to your existence, but, what the heck, time is fluid. And you think YOU'VE got problems leaving quickly....

"Oi..." Shaken, Nashim picks up the spider-scout and faces the camera towards her helmet. "I can't speak to it," she says aloud, "because of the vacuum... hum... dataport..." She pulls a connection from her belt and plugs it into the little robot. "I hope this works...

"Lieutenant Hartmann, whoever is listening, this is Nashim." She pauses, heart racing, trying to keep her stomach down where it is by regulating her breathing. "I don't know where I am, but I'm safe for now. I don't know where you are, but you're in danger. Keep low. I'll try to help from wherever I am. Just don't worry about me."

Letting the little scout dangle from the cord, she looks around. "Kardley! About that edge"--she gulps for air--"if I can help my friends I'm willing. Where are you?"

"Incoming craft, this is 010 dig command. If you're carrying researchers, feel welcome to land here with the others, but we have to advise you that hostility is not to be tolerated. This is an international archaeological research effort."

**

In the room where the soldiers have hunkered down, the message from Nashim came in loud and clear.

**

Nashim heard only the silence, and the whirr of the machinery inside her own suit. It was empty, and only shadows lurked in the ruinous decay of the room.

OOC:It started prior to my existence, but everyone moves in ulta slow motion.

Where are we?
Hartmann's portcomp beeps. "Whoa." Flipping it open, she blinks for a moment. "Commander!"

al Kashim runs up. "What is it?"

"I'm getting a signal from the spider-scout. Check this." She points to the screen, which shows Nashim obviously holding the scout out at arm's length in some dilapidated room.
"Lieutenant Hartmann, whoever is listening, this is Nashim." She pauses, heart racing, trying to keep her stomach down where it is by regulating her breathing. "I don't know where I am, but I'm safe for now. I don't know where you are, but you're in danger. Keep low. I'll try to help from wherever I am. Just don't worry about me.""I'm trying to maintain contact with the scout. Maybe we can lead her back or something."

The commander pales. "We're in trouble but she isn't? Hell. How much time do our suits have left?"

"Five hours." Larch throws a random something against the wall.

"Damn."

Where am I?
After taking a moment to calm down, Nashim stumbles about, looking for an exit, still carrying the spider-scout. "Kardley! Dammit, you may think this is a game but think how I must feel!"

Contact was lost once more, Nashim's already-faint contact dissolving into static, but it was just enough time to get a reading. Her signal seemed to be coming in from... everywhere.

** Nashim's vision **

Nashim stumbled and fell upon something hard and orbicular on the wall. There was a momentary heat spike, and it all cooled again, but before that, the walls seemed to flash, a matrix of thin green veins appearing upon them before vanishing into oblivion.

Kardley's gentle voice comes in as the lightest of whispers, not from her radio, but as if her was standing next to her, leaning towards her ear.

"I do want to help you, but they won't tolerate us just barging in and solving all of your problems. It's the only way you ( as a species ) can evolve. Now I've given you all the clues I'm empowered to, I've shown you the path. Now, if you're clever, you can walk it. Listen between."

A black hole seemed to appear on the opposite wall, the bulkhead seeming to vanish as if pulled by gravity, distorting into the widening maw.

** Loa's Vision **

Dreams of green...

Loa's body broke out in sudden drops of cold sweat, the tears distorting his vision, and he felt as if his entire being were being invaded by the blackness of space itself, clamping upon his heart.

There was something about staying still, in this place that was somehow immediately and all-consumingly revolting and awful.

** al Kashim **

He noticed, from the corner of his eye, a bit of strange writing on the wall, but it was different somehow. Though it formed clear patterns identical with those of a spoken language, it was oddly shaped, waving, rippling grooves of variable height and depth, and above it was some strange curve of sorts that seemed meant to channel air through the grooves.

They seemed to be speaking to him, saying something that he couldn't quite understand, that he couldn't quite put his finger upon, but knew was deadly important.

*bumplz0r*

Reality?
Hartmann scratches the back of her helmet. "Well, that's odd..."

Nashim's Take
Letting herself huddle down, she thinks. "Okay, hints hints hints... we've got something concerning some extra dimensions. Flatlander? The sphere talking to the square? Superdimensional beings are like gods. Doctor Michio Koku. Hmm... 'All Mimsy Were The Borogoves.' x logic.

"Hmm." She pauses, tapping the side of her helmet with one finger. "x logic. How to unlearn set logic patterns to learn x?

"Hints. I am here." She swirls her finger around. "They are there." She taps the floor. "Fourth, fifth, and sixth axes..."

Her eyes widen. "I'm z translated. Flatlander. The sphere starts above the plane, and is invisible. It moves down, and appears as a growing circle. It subjectively 'shrinks' to a viewer once its equator passes, disappears below the plane. It can see inside things, it can wander about at will invisible to those on lesser planes. It is, to plane-dwellers, everywhere."

She stands up, punches the air, and laughs. "Yes, that's it. Now I know where I am. English may be insufficient, but mathematics isn't. Tangent planes to level surfaces, functions of variables x, y, and z. Need a four-dimensional graph to see the real object, but you can't put that on paper."

As she looks around, she tries to put everything she sees into math, concentrating on no particular detail--she's smart, but not a computer--instead trying to generalize, get basic ideas, not concentrate too hard. Besides, if she's going to live like this, she'll have to learn how to flow with it... and she might as well start learning now.

Reality (?), affected by Loa's and al Kashim's takes
"Let's get outta here, man..." He starts shaking, armor creaking around his frame. "If we don't get out, we gonna die[i], like Sergeant Nashim..."

"She's not dead, trooper!" Jamieson shouts a bit larger than he'd wish, fingers drumming on the guard of his pulse laser rifle. "Calm yourself before you get calmed."

Loa curls up, rifle firmly shouldered, twiddling with the strap in his armored fingers as he rocks back and forth. "There's no way out. We've been going in circles." He sobs. "We're going in circles in a straight line! That's not [i]possible!"

The master sergeant nods to Corporal Kincaid, scowling under his armored mask, then jogs his head towards the gently rocking Loa. "Tranq him. We'll drag him out if we have to."

al Kashim stares at the writing, trying to force it to make sense in his head, ignoring all else. Of course, lacking six-dimensional vision or understanding, he's moderately unsuccessful at best.

And then Loa vanished...

**

Loa suddenly found himself in a great blackness, and before him stood the golden triangle, standing upon a single point, and in its surface lay traced a complex pattern of geometric designs, a tracery of gold filament, and to him it seemed as if it were not only cut into the surface, but as if it were somehow seen from all other angles and none at once. And when he moved towards it, the triangle did not move away. Rather it stayed quite still...

Loa's take

And he keels over in a fetal position, his mind unable to take much more of this.

The next thing that Loa saw was the Triangle. It was closer. Closer it came, and in his mind, there seemed to be a feeling, a clawing feeling nagging at his brain - a feeling of close, close, close....

**

Nashim, the complexities of higher-dimensional mathematics and reasoning revealed to her, found that the peculiar grooves and lines carved into the walls of the room seemed to correspond not to simple markings, but actual data objects in more than one dimension. She saw them as three-dimensional objects, but they were far more than that. It began to make sense.

Loa's take

He shuts his eyes, mind muttering itself to keep control, that it'll all work out, a tiny bit of reason working against the fear running rampant. Curled up in his armor, he curls even tighter, forcing his suit to twitch slightly from the constant pressure on the feedback sensors.

He never realizes that he is screaming so strongly that it only comes out as a shrill, hoarse squeak.

Nashim's take

Fighting down the elation of beginning to understand, she slowly analyzes the data objects, looking at them as one looks at unfamiliar art, wanting to gain an understanding. Natural and fluid, as if it were the most common thing in the world.

Nashim's observations, thoughts, and experimentations cause something to happen. A door opens up on the wall, the wall seeming to dissolve, as if eaten by a hole of blackness. A long corridor stretches forth before her.

**

Back at the team, a hole opens up on the floor. Light only travels some four metres before it is swallowed up by darkness. It leads downward at a steep incline.

Nashim's take
Shrugging, she walks down the corridor, having nothing better to do... acting and thinking as if it's the most natural thing in the universe. Just being smooth, going with the flow of things, suppressing her joy as she slowly begins to understand.

Of course, it's always been that way, so there's no point in getting all worked up about seeing it for the first time. Not yet, at least.

Reality on a lower plane of perception
"What the--?"

Sergeant Larch gets up, hooks a line from his suit to the equipment cart, and walks calmly towards the hole. Commander al Kashim turns around and blinks. "What are you doing, Sergeant?"

"Exploring, sir. I don't think we've much else in the way of options."

Nashim
----------------

The corridor seemed to stretch into infinity, but almost as soon as she had been walking in the strange corridor she ended up in a new place, an equally strange place. An immense golden triangle stood before her, its surface covered in intricate designs, carved grooves and spirals, and shapes obviously conceived by a completely nonhuman mind, seeing through a nonhuman eye. It was balanced upon a single tip. The room itself was circular, its walls covered in similar designs, and at the centre lay a cluster of tubes, seemingly empty, but filled with a strange fluid that glowed green with an eerie light. The tubes were connected to the ceiling, one stacked atop another, in a great column of green transparent tubes, quietly bubbling.

The Team

The hole led down, into a room wherein the ceiling had fallen in wreckage and ruin all about the floor.