Unknown Structure on HIP 19026 B 1 C
08 Dec 2017Robert Phillips
My recent encounter with a secretive relay station gave me several new leads. The most promising lead was a follow up to the message from the Comms Beacon in Electra:UNKNOWN SIGNAL SOURCE: SYSTEM HIP 19026: PLANET B 1 C:LAT MINUS 17:LONG MINUS 152: PLEASE REMEMBER US:GET THE MESSAGE OUT:
This gave a me a system, planet, and Lat/Long coordinates: HIP 19026 B 1 C at coords -17, -152.
I immediately jumped to that location. Supercruising a few hundred KM above the surface of the planet, I circled in on the coordinates. As my ship pointed towards the planet, I could see a blemish on the surface - an unnatural spiral shape, distinctly different in colour to the rest of the planet's surface.
I circled towards it and came out of SuperCruise a few km from the target. From this distance, the structure appeared to be artificial, apparently embedded in the planet's surface:
As I got closer, I could see that the centre of the structure was bathed in some kind of green-yellow haze:
I landed my ship amongst the arms of the structure, as close as possible to the centre, and deployed my SRV.
A close inspection of one of the arms reveals it to be made of some kind of organic material, with unknown properties:
Dotted around the structure are bio-mechanical drones identified as 'Scavengers':
I observed them for a while and noted that they appeared to be interacting with the structure in some way, by firing some kind liquid at it. They moved in a set pattern, and were not hostile. If you attacked them, they would then become hostile and spit a corrosive liquid. Thankfully, they are quite easy to destroy, and destroyed scavengers dropped Thargoid materials.
There were several nodes dotted about the structure called 'Thargoid Uplink Device':
They could be scanned, and would provide Thargoid Data to be stored in the Data store. They could not be destroyed by conventional weapons, nor detached from the surface they were attached to.
Various Organic Structures are dotted about the site which can be used to collect raw materials. There were also small fungal like pods. They appeared to cause no harm, and would burst if ran over:
Around the central core of the structure were 4 'doors' leading into the structure itself. However, 2 were damaged, and the remaining 2 were closed. At first I wasn't able to open the doors. I tried scanning them, ramming them, firing at them, and waiting to see if a Scavenger entered, but none of it made any difference - the doors remained firmly shut:
Then I had an idea - I returned to my ship and transferred an Unknown Artefact (Thargoid Sensor) from my ship's cargo hold, and returned to one of the closed doors. This time it opened, and I was allowed to pass.
Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. Behind the newly opened door was a passage blocked by collapsed debris:
I reversed and tried the other door, but it was the same.
As beautiful as this place was, there appeared to be no way to get inside.
There were plenty of other options I could investigate, so I returned to my ship and took look at my other leads - perhaps one of them would lead to something more active...