Shadows and Signs
08 Dec 2024Rawnu
Epsilon Eridani burns. Another system, another battle, another graveyard of debris floating through the void. Every engagement feels like progress, but it’s fleeting. Cocijo sits over Earth like a storm that refuses to break, and the news from Sol gets darker by the hour. We’re holding the line in places like this, but it’s hard not to feel like we’re just treading water while the flood rises behind us. Sol is what drives me—Earth, especially. My old commune is still there, high in the Alps, carrying on as they always have. They wouldn’t leave, even with Cocijo in orbit. “The Earth takes care of its own,” they’d say. It’s their stubborn hope that keeps me going, but it’s also what terrifies me. Hope doesn’t stop Titans.I’ve been thinking about Kasumi Goto, that elusive presence connected to Aegis. Her last log stuck with me. She doesn’t talk about the noise often—what she hears, or maybe feels, from the Thargoids. It’s not like Seo Jin-ae’s connection, and it’s not some abstract thing in her head. It’s real. I know her well enough to believe that. What makes her different is the how. The implant, the one that gives her this connection, isn’t something she chose. It was forced on her, like so much of the horror tied to the Thargoids. But it gives her a view into them that the rest of us don’t have. She doesn’t just see their actions—she senses the edges of their shared consciousness, the patterns behind what we think are just attacks.
Kasumi’s not like Seo. She doesn’t frame her insights as warnings or revelations. She works in fragments, interpreting what she can. And from what I’ve seen, it’s not just noise—it’s a piece of something larger, something we haven’t figured out yet.
And that brings me back to Triton. My memories are like shattered glass—sharp and scattered, reflecting images that don’t make sense. I tell myself it was my hyperspace condition, but the lights, the cold, the presence I felt... those weren’t hallucinations. They were real, as real as the fights I’m in now. What if the pieces in my head are part of the same thing Kasumi feels? She’s spoken about how overwhelming it is, how the lack of understanding makes it worse. I can’t imagine what it’s like for her, carrying that weight every day. What I do know is that she'd probably laugh in my face about my rumblings on Raxxla and Triton, and maybe rightfully so–but I wonder if we’re circling the same truth from different sides.
The battles out here are brutal, but it’s not the fighting that wears me down. It’s the questions. Cocijo isn’t just attacking; it’s moving with purpose. The Thargoids aren’t reacting to us—they’re executing something we don’t understand. Kasumi’s insights tell me that much. What I don’t know is how to stop it. So I keep fighting. Epsilon Eridani today. And whatever's next tomorrow. Every system I clear buys someone in Sol a little more time. Maybe it buys Kasumi time too. If anyone can make sense of the shadows pressing in on us, it might well be her.
For now, I’ll focus on what I can see: the debris fields, the rescue calls, the Thargoids ahead. But the shadows are growing, and the signs are there, if only we know how to read them.