Halls of the Ancestors
23 Aug 2023Argon Shadowstar
My grandfather's old maps were right. I have found the realm of my ancestors. Of course, now there is nothing left but abandoned ruins and junk, but this is indeed it. The descriptions of the celestial bodies match those in my grandfather's files. I have begun piecing together where each part of the Imperium was, based on my surveys of the region, using his files as a guide. I believe I have located Pacifica, the high-pressure water world Primus Capital orbited. From Primus, specially designed craft were sent to the surface of Pacifica to collect pressurized water and marine life for use in the station's opulent aquariums and its many delicatessens. The rings provided plenty of resources for the maintenance and construction of the station and all of the Imperium's holdings throughout the system and beyond.The system's many natural resources show only a small amount of depletion, owing to the relatively short lifespan of the Imperium. Few have been out this way, even though the frontiers of the bubble have expanded greatly since the days of the Old Imperium. Most of the wreckage in the system is fairly recent, but I have located the telltale angular, pyramidon structures exemplifying the architecture of the Shadowstar Imperium. Of course, this style of architecture was popular throughout most of human space at the time, but it pretty concisely dates the ruins I've found, since that style of design fell out of favor a few decades after the fall of the Imperium. Nothing of value remains, unfortunately. I wasn't expecting there to be. Centuries of scavengers and grave robbers have ensured that all that remains are the bleached hulls of the ancient pyramidons and dissolving wrecks of what were once the awe-inspiring silver and gold star stations of the Shadowstar Imperium. Such beauty, pilfered and eaten away by meteor showers, dust storms, and human vultures.
I came across an old camp of scavengers who had managed to amass a wealth of gold and silver, picked from the wreckage of Volsci Station. Apparently they had been betrayed by one of their own who breached their camp environment control, intending to kill the lot of them while the traitor stole the ship and attempted to run away with the entire haul. But his "friends" discovered his plans and put a stop to it. And then they prompty killed each other as each one tried to take advantage of the situation to be the last one alive and claim all the loot for himself. Then I came along, decades later to claim what they had stolen. It's rightfully mine anyway. All of this is. Not that I have any authority here anymore. My ancestors may have ruled these stars but there is nothing left of them. My authority in this region amounts to no more than the guns on my ship, and the rifles in my armory. Will that be enough to rule a nation of ghosts?
Volsci Research was a huge complex on the surface of the third moon of the first planet. Little remains of it except for one pyramidon which was only preserved because it was used as a base for pirates and then grave robbers who operated out of the facility for decades after the Fall. Volsci Station was the main orbital for the facility and acted as a secondary research complex as well as a terminal for transit between the surface facility and the rest of the system. I was able to download some old logs from the facility, after digging through all the pirate crap they'd left in the database. Correlating these with my grandfather's notes, I determined that the research staff were trapped in the facility during the Fall but when raiders arrived to steal their valuables, they staged an ambush, killed the raiders, and stole their ship. The last message indicates that they were going to flee to the bubble to find refuge there. I wonder what became of them? I collected what data I could, and perhaps someday I might be able to find out where they went. After they left, it was only a matter of time before scavengers found the base largely intact and inhabited it.
There is so much more here. It will take time to explore. The task may be bigger than me... This was an entire nation which died here, and time and the superpowers both did their part to bury it. But they didn't bury all of it. I will find what they couldn't bury, and I will avenge my fallen family.