NYND 3308: Day 44
15 Feb 2022Helios Eusebio
February 15, 330804:49:37 UGT
Lunar Hyperlight, Plimbeau ZE-R e4-2732 2 F A (Purple Rings)
MET: 43:10:30:27
So we finally have some details on the plot against Emperor Lavigny-Duval. It's not pretty.
ACT has confirmed that the NMLA was bankrolled by a group of Senators calling themselves the "Lords of Restoration", which I'm not sure sounds ominous or aloof. The terrorist organisation was given training at Darkwater facilities and access to encrypted comms equipment by corrupt IISS agents. It seems that the Lords and the NMLA had a common goal: the assassination of not just the Emperor but the entire Duval bloodline. But that is where the commonalities end. While the NMLA wanted to overthrow the monarchy and establish a proper democracy, the Lords weren't interested in that. They instead wished for an Empire run by the Senate instead of the Duval family. They were hoping that the chaos caused by the Marlinist rebellion and the death of the royals would cause the Imperial citizens to see handing executive power over to the Senate as a compromise they could live with.
Honestly, it's a devious plan and it would've worked had everything gone off the way it was supposed to. Obviously, that wasn't the case.
Attempts to install puppet regimes in the Marlinist colonies by getting politicians meant to serve as plants for the Lords were unsuccessful. More critically, Theta Seven went rouge; the Nine Martyrs attacks were never meant to target stations in Federal and Alliance space, it was only meant for Imperial systems. This obviously resulted in ACT turning their sights onto the NMLA and pulling the thread that would lead to their undoing. As well as uncovering the conspiracy of the Lords.
Apparently the Emperor was kidnapped all the way back in January 3307 and a virtual clone was used to conceal her absence. Given that the Nine Martyrs attack was in March, I wonder if her lengthy stay was always part of the plan. Something tells me it initially was but they had to improvise once things went off the rails. Either way, I'll be very interested to hear from her now that she's out of captivity.
I'm also curious to know what the Marlinist colonies think about this. In a way, their entire existence was an accident. It seems that the plan was never meant to establish a series of systems that followed Marlinism any more than it was meant to kill millions in Federal and Alliance space. I personally believe the Marlinist colonies are a good thing as I believe in democracy, but the origin of them came from a very dark plot to turn the Empire into a more authoritarian state.
Sounds like the Empire will have to make some tough decisions going forward.
As for us? We need only worry about our mission. We're heading out to do another survey, tryin to get a clearer picture of what's nearby Purple Rings.
05:58:32
Challenger, Plimbeau DL-P e5-1294
MET: 43:11:39:22
We've started finding Black Holes again.
We've discovered 3 of them so far. One out by its lonesome, another with a Class Y Brown Dwarf and an assortment of planets and moons and this one with just three ice worlds to accompany it. Frasier is pleased that we are exceeding our required data for the frame dragging experiments, so much so that we'll be able to study the results for some time after getting back to 59 V. I imagine Einstein and Hawking would've loved to see the results of our experiments.
A couple things stand out about these Black Holes. The first is that they're somewhat more massive than the ones we've seen so far. While they're still firmly in the lower end of the stellar-mass classification, their mass is around 4-5 Solar masses, slightly more than the average of 3 solar masses we've seen so far. The difference in mass could be explained by the second unique trait: these Black Holes are old.
While the stars around us are slightly older than the other stars we've seen in and around the core, they're still usually anywhere from 2-500 million years and rarely older than a billion. These Black Holes are well past that age by several magnitudes. This one in particular is 12.8 billion years old, less than 1 billion years younger than the Milky Way itself. So what does that tell us? While the other stars in this sector developed during the theorized mass starburst several hundred million years ago, these Black Holes did not. In fact, some of these Black Holes could be the remnants of some of the first stars ever formed in the Milky Way.
A truly remarkable sight, to know that you could be looking at some of the first objects to appear in the galaxy. The dust and debris from their explosive deaths probably created millions of stars, who in turn spawned their own generations leading all the way to our current epoch. And now all that's left of these original stars are gravitational ghosts, wandering the black.
Ironic. The stars that were here when it all began have now each become a place where it all comes to an end.
08:05:49
Challenger, Plimbeau OS-U f2-1464 3 L (50.9841, 122.2858)
MET: 43:12:46:39
We've found another system similar to one we found earlier: a Black Hole orbited by a Class T6V Brown Dwarf with a smattering of planets. The Black Hole is 10 billion years old, the Brown Dwarf somewhat younger due to still radiating some heat. One of the planets orbiting the Brown Dwarf is a rocky world with a tenuous Methane atmosphere. We detected signs of biological life and went to investigate.
The flora on the surface was about what we expected. Colonies of Bacterium Bullaris and Osseus Pumice. Temperatures ranged between 55 and 108 Kelvin thanks to what little heat was still being radiated by the Brown Dwarf and the thin atmosphere wasn't doing much to keep it in. This world was probably a much different place when the parent star was still alive: it was undoubtedly a massive star in the OB classification and it would've provided much more light and heat for this world. Maybe this world originally had a more dense atmosphere that was blown away in the Supernova and this thin Methane one is all that's left. Either way, this world doesn't have long. Eventually the Brown Dwarf will stop radiating heat, and this planet will gradually freeze.
A preview of that world's fate can be found on the moons of the Class I Gas Giant orbiting the Black Hole. The outermost one has an icy ring that contains hotspots for Tritium, Void Opals and LTD's among other minerals. Might have to make a return trip in Lavender Spirit. Much like the ring, this world is a frozen iceball. The surface temperature is about 20 Kelvin and in some cases is as low as 9, barely above Absolute Zero. Even sitting here on the surface, frost is creeping along the windows of Challenger, our environmental control system doing everything it can to keep us from freezing to the surface.
If you wish to see a world that has succumbed to the cold of space, look no further than this one.
That'll do it for our survey today, now it's time to head back to Lunar Hyperlight. Tomorrow we'll be heading out on another mission from Cannon.