HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE - ENTRY 1
04 May 2017Corrigendum
<<PERSONAL LOG - 3 MAY 3303>>I was forced to leave Teorge before I was finished. After my previous entry, I found a secluded crater on the dark side of Torge 1, powered down systems, and surrendered to sleep at the helm. I was roused by a notification that a ship scan had been detected. It was just a salvager, but I made an emergency take-off and departed Teorge nonetheless. I can't afford to take chances.
Shinrarta Dezhra seemed the safest system in the region. I'm double, nearly triple Elite, and in good standing with the Pilots Federation, so I should have no trouble here. The Pilots Federation couldn't care less about faction status with the superpowers. For once, that works in my favor. I may linger a few days.
Oh, and I did some digging on Teorge. Rebecca's logs said she put her message in that system for a reason, and that "the old lore will tell you why". Well, here's what I've discovered. Snatches of what amount to ancient rumors lead me to believe Teorge was settled by two colony ships. Shortly therafter, the colonists turned to cloning and eugenics. A troubling society... Apparently too troubling for the people of other systems. The Teorgians were forcibly isolated from the rest of humanity. Its people were apparently forbidden from venturing into space. Their physical characteristics were reportedly readily recognizable. Common traits included dark eyes and olive skin, but there were supposedly other defining characteristics. The Teorgians were also known for being somewhat stoic, though not in the strictest sense. There's really not a great deal of information, even when you consider how old the data on the early days of Teorge is.
So... why put the logs there? Is the cloning significant? The eugenics? The physical characteristics of its people? The quarantine of the population? Their ability to handle their emotions better than most? The time period when it was colonized?Something else? What? No epiphany as yet on this subject. It will require more research.
What next?
I suppose the Antares is as good a place as any to resume the line of thought from my previous entry. The 3250s... somewhere between fact and fugue.
It took me quite a while to search the old archives for the original account of the loss of the Antares. You have to be careful with the archives. Access is closely monitored. Queries scrutinized. Since a spate of people wound up dead over the information I was looking for, I considered it best to avoid directly searching for the information I sought. I made a number of broad queries on variety of topics over several days. Some related, most not. I cast the net as wide as I could to both avoid suspicion and still give me a decent shot at finding what I was looking for. Once I exported the data dumps out of the archives and into my own closed systems, I could be more aggressive in my search. I wish I could say I was surprised at how few articles survived about such an important event that transpired just over 50 years ago.
3251 - FEDERATION NEWS - ANOTHER ALIEN RACE.
It must be that the silly news season has started early this year. Reports in journals which will try anything to increase their circulation are normally easy enough to dismiss: when they are tied into hard news stories like the recent loss of the Highliner Antares then the morality of the news hounds (we can call them nothing more opprobrious) who perpetrate these fictions must be called into question by any responsible member of the journalistic profession.
Your reporter watched the departure of Antares on her maiden voyage, the monolayer streamers glinting in the harsh light of Sirius as she moved gently away from the orbital habitat and out to launch range. Spacemen talk of a graveyard of lost ships, a place where all who lose their lives in the colossal drive to colonise the galaxy rest in gentle luxury.
We can be sure that the great Highliner Antares is now of their company.
Half of this article was dedicated to attacking the credibility and the character of other journalists who apparently reported the loss of the Antares. Aside from the whimsical account of the Antares' departure, this article does nothing to establish facts or debate supposed falsehoods perpetuated by other news agencies. None of those "silly news" pieces exist anymore. If they were really so silly and easily discounted, why bother to scrub them from the archives?
Once you get past the slander, the rest of the piece is familiar to anyone who has read the official history of the loss of the Antares. Pure fluff that tells the reader absolutely nothing about what actually happened to the Antares.
But that title... "ANOTHER ALIEN RACE". Context is key to understanding here. Was the development of next-generation hyperdrives considered an "alien competition" -- like a "space race" -- or were they using the words "alien race" to reference a group of alien beings? The former is certainly not an expression I've heard, but is plausible. The latter lacks sufficient context clues to say for certain.
Supposing for a moment that it is the latter. The word "another", in my mind, implies there may have been two alien races on the author's mind. Since the "Thargoids" were often explicitly mentioned in several of the old articles I extracted, I am forced to presume the reference refers to another group of alien beings. Was there really "ANOTHER ALIEN RACE"? Is that why all of those "silly news" pieces had to be purged by the censors?
So tenuous a connection is scarcely worthy of the word "conjecture". It's certainly not actionable. Nevertheless, I've kept it at the back of my mind ever since I came across it.
One other thing I found odd. When I said there were often references to Thargoids in the archive data I extracted, I mean dozens of individual accounts. Whereas, today the Thargoids are practically mythological.
Back on topic. There was only one other article about the Antares dating from 3251.
3251 - IMPERIAL NEWS - EXPERIMENTAL ENGINES WITHDRAWN.
The shipyards of Sirius L4 have announced that the new experimental hyperdrive engines, the Mk 3b, are being withdrawn from service for an indefinite period. The engines have proved fractious in use, probably because of the extreme temperatures reached by the main reactors in routine use and the reduced shielding introduced to enable greater sub-light acceleration to be achieved. We can easily forget that the design of new engines, as shown in the recent sad loss of the Highliner Antares, is not an exact science.
We can take some little satisfaction, however, in the news that the Imperial war fleet is still testing its latest drives after three years.
Quite simply - we do things better here.
The 3b hyperdrives were never reintroduced. I think it the FSD was first being tested in 3278?
Pause recording.
<<PAUSE PERSONAL LOG>>
<<RESUME PERSONAL LOG>>
Yes, that's correct. 3278. Sirius denied it for decades, but they have finally acknowledged that the development of the FSD was a fork of the same research program that spawned the Antares' 3b drive. By that time, millions of ships had been retrofit with the new drives, and there was plenty of evidence to demonstrate the relative safety of the tech.
The tragedy of the Antares was written off as an experimental drive malfunction. Cut and dried. Nobody had reason to question it. Well, almost nobody. And the secrets surrounding the Antares would prove to claim lives decades after its disappearance.
I'll get to that in my next log. I still need to recover from days of lost sleep. Yes, it would seem I'm finally capable of sleeping, and I'm going to take it while I can. Funny what happens when you listen to your conscience. You'll never hear that remedy from an Imperial insomnia specialist.
End recording and encrypt.
<<END PERSONAL LOG>>
<<CIPHER: GENDYMION CHARLIE OSCAR ROMEO 2>>
<<COMPLETE>>