Stuck in Meene
18 Aug 2022Ember Lacson
Nicole was going to meet me for breakfast yesterday, but she wasn't in her quarters when I checked. I stopped by sickbay just in case, and they said she had come in earlier with a headache and vertigo, as well as some eerily similar nightmares to mine. They had given her another scan, but they said they didn't see anything worrying; she just needed more rest. But they also told me we needed to stay in Meene for a few days.It's been kind of interesting looking at the long range scanners to see all the ships heading down to Phoenix Base. A lot of them were unladen, probably going there for first meetings or to order modifications. But a lot of them had some anomalous energy readings—no doubt from grelics. But I'm gonna be honest...I think I might trust Palin better. Ram Tah has a monopoly on Guardian hybrid tech, and I've always supported market competition. Plus, a lot of people I trust say Palin is probably more candid and science minded about the whole thing. They say Palin genuinely wants to understand the Thargoids. They say Ram Tah, on the other hand, just wants to exploit the Guardians to create weapons, and he'll do the same for the new stuff. While I do agree that we need new weapons to defend ourselves until a more peaceful resolution is possible, it's been proven twice that war is not going to solve the problem.
I haven't visited Palin in over 3 years, because the last time I did, he was still in Maia. It was a pretty good place to do Thargoid research, up until they attacked. One thing I had forgotten about was the appearance of a fifth Interceptor variant, dubbed "Orthrus." It was non-hostile, had a continuous shield, and had Basilisk statistics. A lot of people speculated it was a seed ship of some kind. I wonder if we're going to be seeing more of those now that the Thargoids are done putting up with our shenanigans. I’ve heard tell that the goids might try to push us out of their territory just as we have been pushing them out of ours for years.
There’s still a lot of speculation about whether the Proteus Field, as some CMDRs are calling it, will spread to other systems. But at this point I’m not entirely sure. Here’s what we know: First, Guardian technology was what enabled the Proteus Wave to function. It was the basis for the interface, and it’s pretty clear it was the basis for the retributive strike and the reason our Guardian stuff goes into a destructive feedback cascade in the system. Salvation unwittingly handed the Thargoids the weapon they needed. But do they understand it enough to reproduce it? I honestly think that is what they would have to do in order to propagate the Field to other systems.
See, there’s this thing in physics called the Inverse Square Rule, and it applies to a ton of different concepts, such as the strength of gravity and the energy of electromagnetic waves as they travel. It states that the strength of the wave decreases by 1 over the square of the distance. So let’s say two objects are exerting gravitational force on one another. If you double the distance between them, the gravitation is only one quarter as strong. If you triple the original distance, it is one ninth as strong. If you quadruple it, it’s one sixteenth as strong. Even though the Wave propagated superliminally, it still has to obey this one law. While they may have been able to get it to affect human ships and Guardian modules hundreds of thousands of light seconds out, there’s no way they would get it to reach another system without another transmitter.
That’s where the Orthrus variants come in. Maybe their job is not just to seed planets with barnacles, but also to seed them with the beginnings of those larger structures. Maybe those larger structures are the adult stage of barnacles. If that’s the case, it could take them centuries and just as many Guardian artifacts to get another Proteus Field transmitter up and running. So, we may not know their endgame but I doubt they have the wherewithal to exterminate us by turning our own tech against us.
What’s more likely is they’ll miniaturize it and incorporate it into their shutdown fields. But they know we have neutralizers, and by now they probably know the neutralizers aren’t Guardian hybrid tech. Maybe they’ll find a way to counteract those too. But until that point, I think every AX ship or xeno recon ship should have one, even if it means forgoing that extra heatsink launcher or doing without a xeno scanner.
You know, now that I’m thinking about shutdown fields…something’s been scratching at the back of my mind. The purpose of the second Wave pulse was to disable all human ships in the system. We got jostled, but we never lost power. Something pretty consistent about survivors’ accounts is that they all had to deal with a reboot before they could get away. Maybe one or two were quick enough with a shutdown field neutralizer to counteract some of the effects, but it wasn’t strong enough. Iathrana is not an AX ship. She doesn’t have any of those modules, but other than her FSD booster she got away completely unscathed.
Something’s…odd about that. I’ll have to ruminate a little more. But for now I’m too tired. Hopefully no dreams or good dreams tonight. I don’t want a repeat of that nightmare.