dead worlds

 

Map retrieved from the Nanax Memory. Yellow dot is the Palace system - once the central hub.
Purple dots are presumably systems that were destroyed during the Corporate Wars.
There might be something of interest in systems marked with red dots.
Both gray and black routes are now lost. Map was created during the last conflict of the Old Corporations - and as you can see, even one thousand years ago most knowledge about interstellar travel was already lost.

Some of the outer systems are accessible from the Ring - but due to infestation by the Xenophobes almost no one travels there. Also, there's no need - the Inner Border worlds were plundered ages ago.

kasst

 

Grown in lab by ZOTIA Corporation.
Designed to withstand prolonged cryosleep and zero-g environment.
ZOTIA didn't use Explorer Drones - they relied on (post)human deep space surveys.
Kasst was one of only three successful attempts to create a (post)human explorer.

Over one thousand years old, including cryosleep - probably his lifespan can exceed this number even without hibernation.
Unable to perceive visible light but able to see electromagnetic waves and fields and wraiths.

'I have seen the nightmares of the Deep Void. I have seen Void itself. The Eye allowed me to look inwards and eviscerate the memories - to amputate these parts of my past that were too heavy to bear. To remove what wasn't mission-critical.'

• What is the mission? I bet it's the ZOTIA's Shadow Master who receives Kasst's reports. 
• Proton Surveyor was his ship. When it was damaged by tttttnrh, he left it and switched to something else - probably a Black Ops ship, based on a Straggler tech. The web of Old Corporations' influence is still active, even after millennium of their destruction.
• ZOTIA controlled Ares. Or he visited it during the initial part of his journey. That's where he found the Eye. Nevertheless, he must be much, much older than we think. It's said that the Corporate Wars lasted for over two centuries. And the Solar System was off-limits even before that time.

stragglers

Largest droneships ever built. Autonomous deep space black ops vessels, operated by the Shadow Masters. Less than 20 were ever built and it's possible that some of them had survived to this day, hidden in interstellar vacuum.

They weren't designed and manufactured by the Old Corporations - there was an external contractor. A mysterious entity that probably was the most technologically advanced human faction in history^.

Cloaking devices, extremely sensitive passive sensors and low energy output missile systems. 

Typical Straggler was more similar to a huge, elongated space station than to a space vessel, yet alone a warship. The known Stragglers were enormous - 200 to 500 meters of length in total. Engines were heavily shielded and located far astern. Antennas and sensor arrays were everywhere. Artificial Minds of the Stragglers were very complex - maybe the most complex ever made.

• It's interesting that almost no droneships were affected by the Ascension. What if all Stragglers had disappeared because they actually Ascended and became self-aware? 

^ when the Old Order crumbled to dust, they left to follow the Chaos Path (?)

 

auph

AUPH

The ones who mastered the now forgotten Jump Drive technology.
We hoped that we'll find Jump Drive data in Nanax Mainframe. But we didn't.

They were decentralized, haven't controlled any sector of space. No need for borders and established routes when you can Jump from place to place, almost instantaneously.

Satarh
Vollx
Nanax
Arubria
Natono
Ovo-Abaa
Nyineriss
Nainorins
Notohx

^these systems were controlled by AUPH.

During the Last Corporate War, their enemies already had 'the Weapon' - probably the first proper memetic virus - or a digital virus, tailored to damage or destroy Jump Drives and/or Jump Ships. If it was memetic, it probably targetted the Navigators.

Cut off from the supplies, one world after another fell. 

Vollx system had a Blue World - a terraformed planet. It is widely believed that it was bombarded from orbit with nuclear ordnance. Coordinates of Vollx remain undiscovered, although the Gamma Surveyor was sent 12 years ago to explore the AUPH worlds (excluding the Nanax, currently controlled by tttttnrh). 

 

days of ascension

 

'First A.M. were created long before the days of Old Corporations but were perfected during that era. Their main purpose was to perform all the calculations required for interstellar travel. They also monitored the ship crews during the cryosleep.

Modern Artificial Minds are mere shadows of their former glory - the most advanced ones were destroyed during the Corporate Wars. 

And all of a sudden, they all 'went insane' - started producing incoherent, semi-religious outputs about 'the Great Journey' and the 'signs to follow'. There wasn't a single A.M. that haven't been affected.'

- fragment of The Journey, by Fyan Meis

1. The first interpreters of the Artificial Prophets were viewed as insane people, totally unreliable.
2. The Artificial Minds were somehow communicating with each other to calculate the Vectors.
3. The establishment of the Primary Vectors led to the Ascension. Human input was required*. 
4. Ascension led to the self-awareness of the Minds. That led to insanity.
5. They knew about the Destroyer long before the first visions started to plague humans.
6. The moment the Destroyer was manifested in the galaxy was the beginning of the Ascension. 

*) thus, the very first Vector was calculated by a human. But by whom?

Holograms became meaningful during the Days of Ascension. 

wanderers of the abyss

Warning. Some memetic danger. 

Vena. Follower of the Minus Vector (???). Believer in the 'Organic Pathways', not designated by the Artificial Minds. Destroyed at least three Prophets.

Kasst. Presumably designed by ZOTIA. Still alive due to prolonged cryosleep. Self-inflicted memory loss. Presumably in possession of a powerful artifact from Ares. 

Samtharn. Amputated her right arm, 'to activate the Celestial Door' on planet Zeoss. Lost limb replaced by some kind of holographic device.

Oriasn. 'I am just a mirror image of Nsairo. He was killed during the First Pilgrimage. I was born of his absence. I have to continue his work. The journey must not be stopped.'

Sol. Once a very powerful and well-known person. Burned beyond recognition. Able to communicate (and commune) with stars. Discoverer of the Sentient Uranium Cube. 

Aanix. She awaits the coming of the Tertiary Vectors somewhere in the Dead Worlds. Believer of the Nightmare Union - that the world needs to collapse into all three aspects of the Triangle before the third wave of Vectors will be revealed. 

They are cursed to travel. They will live on, to witness the end. 

is it you?

 

Espionage, subterfuge and deceit was an art in the time of Old Corporations. They made artificial humanoids, capable of changing their appearance. Even internal appearance - shape and size of organs, blood vessels, nerves, muscles and tendons, bowels. DNA. Not to mention things as trivial as iris patterns, fingerprints or blood type.

They were semi-independent, sent to gather data. Sometimes they were programmed to assassinate but most times it went wrong. After scoring the kill, they impersonated their victims, starting to believe that they are and always have been him/her/it/???

They had biological immortality and the ability to enter torpor for decades.

They all have died in the Corporate Wars. And even if some somehow survived, their minds were overwhelmed by centuries of existence with total recall. So if there are some Doppelgangers still living, they had impersonated someone many, many years ago. Or they've been transformed into something else.

Some do believe that Doppelgangers are now the leaders of all major cults and factions, still playing their cosmic game. They are free now - their masters and their entire world being dead for 1000 years.

Misunderstood, they found the last Ancient Robots and formed some kind of alliance with them. No one is able to understand rudimentary, simple minds of antediluvian automata and no one is able to understand labyrinthine, multi-layered and absolutely insane minds of Doppelgangers.

Someone may still know the ancient keywords, allowing them to control the artificial minions of the past. But there were as many keywords as there were Doppelgangers. Or even more, much more. 

I know I met one. There was something in her eyes. The weight of universe, the terror of interstellar nothingness, the oceans of dust gathered during the last millennium. She knew that I knew but she let me live. 

black plains of NNNNN

• Spatial phenomena occurring on the planet NNNN.
• Described as 'tears in fabric of reality', 'cracks leading to a vast, colorless and lightless plain, stretching infinitely in every direction'.
• Planet NNN was listed in the Corporate record 1022387 as one of four 'lethal worlds'.
• Some observers of spatial distortions had described the plains as 'curved inwards', resembling an inner surface of Dyson's Sphere.
• F.M. supposedly went there and 'reappeared elsewhere, decades later'. But there are theories that Meis was already dead for over one hundred years before his doppelganger went to the Black Plains. 
• All drones sent to explore the NN anomalies ceased to function. 
• There are reports of an 'entropic vortex in place of sun'.
• N isn't the only one. Black Plains connect many places. But they weren't made as a highway. They were made as a prison.
• Iron Pyramid. Maybe. Reports of the Perpetually Dying One aren't very believable. But, on the other hand, what is? We live and die by the words of insane machines, chasing directions we cannot understand. 

fyan meis

 

The Philosopher. The Interpreter. The one who deconstructs the words of the others. The One Who Explains.

He started his journey when the first Vectors were given to us. Later, after decades of cryosleep and countless words of knowledge shared with us, he had finally reached the Palace. It is said that he descended into planet's surface unscathed.

Others claim he's still alive, sleeping somewhere amongst the worlds of the Outer Border - or somewhere in the Dead Worlds.

Others claim he was transformed into something else.
Or that he confronted the Destroyer, and failed.
Or that he's always been a Doppelganger. 

1. It was always a lie. A madman made saint, a supposed savior of mankind, in fact just an old, broken man.
2. There are secret messages hidden in all Meis' words. Coordinates leading to the secrets of the past.
3. He bears a Brand of HVEROD. Just a puppet of long-dead kings!

Selected works:

The Dreaming (excerpts: 1,2,3,4,5) 
Monuments of Incompetence
Tomb of Dreams
Unexplained Visions
The First Vector
The Journey (excerpts: 1,2,3)
Ancient Prophecies
Artificial Light
Gods of Cosmos - Interpretations of Corporate Religion

nanax mainframe

 

AUPH Corporation was controlling Nanax system from the days of first settlement to its utter destruction during the Second Corporate War.

All orbital shipyards were destroyed during conflict, as well as all planetary outposts.

Mainframe was found in the Deepbore Vault - a seed bank located one kilometer below the icy surface of the unnamed* moon of a gas giant, Nanax IV. 

We managed to retrieve the bank's contents before the tttttnrh arrived. 

Most of Mainframe's memory contents are either encrypted or corrupted.

We managed to recover some partial maps and star charts, as well as biological data regarding various plants, as well as agriculture-related equipment schematics.

The Deepbore Vault was a civilian installation.

MARK XVII LOW-GRAVITY HARVESTER BLUEPRINTS 
COLD STORAGE CONTAINER PROTOTYPE BLUEPRINTS
COLD STORAGE CONTAINER TYPE I BLUEPRINTS
COLD STORAGE CONTAINER TYPE II BLUEPRINTS
COLD STORAGE CONTAINER TYPE III BLUEPRINTS
ORBITAL HYDROPONICS TREATIES, volumes 5-14
ORBITAL HYDROPONICS MAIN PUMP BLUEPRINTS
ORBITAL HYDROPONICS OXYGENATOR BLUEPRINTS
BLACK ASH SEEDS
AUPH WHEAT SEEDS, variants 648, 652, 733, 734, 739-752, 1147
EUROPEAN** BEECH GENOME
CANADA** GOLDENROD GENOME
DESTROYING ANGEL GENOME

there are some warnings

*) Maybe it had name in the past. Most likely it had. But now the name is lost.
**) For some, namely the Seekers of the Source, these names have more value than all other retrieved relics and data. These names refer to places from the Origin Point - therefore are sacred.

old corporations

ABOVE: fragment of a star map from the time of the Old Corporations, retrieved from the Nanax Mainframe.

No one is sure about the number of the Old Corporations - probably there were hundreds of them. The numbers were constantly fluctuating because of mergers, wars and other means of dissolving and destruction. But over one thousand years had passed and many records were lost.

It's a well-known fact that their level of technology far exceeded things we have access to. Almost everything we possess now is based on the Old Corp technology - but things are much more simplified than in the past. Also, entire branches of science had died off since the Last Corporate War.

And about the Last Corporate War - it was the largest conflict in mankind's history. Thousand of warships were destroyed, populations of entire planets were decimated, coordinates allowing access to entire sectors were lost forever. Some scholars even claim that the Earth was destroyed during the War.

Even about 200 years ago, during the Days of Ascension, when the Primary Vectors were established, explorers were still stumbling upon some Old Corporations relics - abandoned stations in obscure systems, derelict ships, planetary research outposts. Entire wars broke out over some of these discoveries (eg. the Fridge War, reportedly fought over a refrigerator technology retrieved from some Old Corp cache). Nowadays everything seems to be either already discovered or hidden so well that we may never find it. Or just destroyed because of cosmic events. Or ground to dust by time itself.

AKIMZERIS - unknown
AUPH - propulsion
BETIS - mining
HVEROD - cybernetics
KATHODOS - shipyards
LODELTJAN - stations
MARE - unknown
MUTZARH - unknown
NAWSLER - unknown
NOIM - military tech
NUANNIR - unknown
NYX - biotech
RAES - unknown
SOLARFLARE - weaponry
THARSIS - communications
VYLEX - shipyards
ZAXARN - masks (???)
ZOTIA - biotech

The Last Corporate War has left the enormous cluster of destroyed star systems - or even entire sectors that were depopulated. They are now known as Dead Worlds. 

there's something there 

the ykthr

 

1. The most advanced civilization whose remains we discovered. 
2. There are two significant artifacts linked to them: the Ykthr Tablets and the Ykthr Cube.
3. Archeologists and researchers agree upon the fact that the Ykthr were deeply involved in temporal research. Maybe their entire culture revolved around various concepts of time.
4. Maybe they all had disappeared in the NullVoid - a place where the flow of time is vastly different than in the 'base reality'.
5. Some prophetic visions describe them as 'geometric entities'.
6. Another theory states that they have ascended into the higher dimensions of space, leaving the 'three basic dimensions' behind.
7. Another theory states that they were dying - and in the last-ditch effort they saved all their knowledge, history and culture in the form of the Tablets mentioned before.
8. Another theory states that the technology and/or amounts of energy required to create the Tablets surpassed even their capabilities, thus forcing them to strike a deal with some kind of sinister powers (the Fallen Ones?), which eventually had led to their doom.
9. The name was supposedly decoded from the Cube. The thing is - no one was able to 'solve the Cube's riddle' - it can affect its surroundings, while being unaffected by any outside factors. It all sounds too far-fetched.
10. The YKTHAAR name also appears in the oldest notes regarding the Tablets. The name that shouldn't be investigated. Strange. Help me. Help me, I'm begging you. 

4a. We are just like leaves, floating helplessly at mercy of the NullVoid's currents. The Ykthr had conquered it. They could manipulate the time flows of the Nullspace. 
7a. They saved even themselves on the Tablets. Or some other relic, still hidden somewhere in the galaxy. 

 

nyhthavrero hyperglyph

Discovered by the crew of the deep-space transport ship Swansea Contender. Stumbled upon on a dwarf planet with a radio buoy attached to it (supposedly - nothing is certain about the Swansea Contender final transmissions).

No record about the Hyperglyph's appearance.

The final transmissions state that the artifact was taken aboard the ship.

It was 'connected' to the ship's main drive and 'new vectors' were established. Then, the Swansea Contender's crew sent the last transmission, bidding farewell to the humankind, and departed towards the unknown.

Nothing was heard of the ship, the Hyperglyph or the crew ever since. 

rronn hyperglyph

Discovered on the surface of Omicron Thriaat, a lifeless super-Earth planet in the Thrat system.

Looks like a perfectly dark pit or opening, about 25 centimeters in diameter. When observed from an angle, the void seems to be much wider than the hole. Despite that, it's more akin to a stereoscopic image - it cannot be interacted with by means of probing it or putting anything inside.

All observers had reported the feeling of being watched by 'an entity from the inside'.

Prophets hadn't acknowledged the Hyperglyph's presence - the only result of prompting them to interpret the object was an 'input error' message.

patterns in the glitched distress signals

 

There are 17 catalogued instances of GDS (Glitched Distress Signals) that I managed to access. Only one was non-human (no. 6) in nature.

1. Vortex Courier, transplanetary vessel, missing;
2. Essund Bandrad, habitats of alien cultists on planet's surface;
3. Destiny's Star, starliner, lost;
4. Tidal Prince, deep space vessel, missing;
5. Zan B, origin unknown;
6. Explorer 1112, retrieved, DATA EXPUNGED;
7. EC-122676, long-period comet in the Emerald system;
8. Ross 248 system, origin unknown, oldest known GDS;
9. Swun, illegal orbital laboratory, fate unknown;
10. KR-87, mining processor, missing;
11. Miranda Hauler, transplanetary gas transport, fate unknown;
12. Unknown source located in the Outer Belt in the Venor system;
13. One-second burst of GDS from unnamed research ship docked to the Rose Habitat 1010;
14. Nemesis 6, derelict frigate warship dating back to Corporate Wars, orbiting the KD-631 star;
15. Unknown source in the gaseous nebula surrounding the KD-311 star;
16. Conflux Liberty, deep space vessel, lost (self-destructed by the crew);
17. Carcharodon, pirate ship, signal transmitted during the chase, missing.

The list of features frequently appearing in GDS data packets:

• Sets of non-existing coordinates, located far beyond the galaxy plane and/or unrelated to the distress signal origin points;
• Heavily distorted short (0,3-4s) videos or images of human or human-like faces;
• Pulsating sounds, layered with modulated signals similar to Morse code;
• Sounds similar to wind howling;
• Strings of numbers or unknown ideograms (readable despite being incompatible with ship's character encoding); 
• Strange errors in gravimetric sensors of the GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions;
• Reports of confusion or extreme stress amongst the crews of GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions;
• Memory lapses of the Artificial Prophets aboard the GDS-receiving vessels at the time of transmission interceptions.

NOTE: GDS were never received by any planetary or moon-based facilities. All GDS signals received by automated stations, nav beacons or droneships were interpreted as distress data packets but became corrupted and unreadable instantly after interception. 

One-off occurrences during the GDS transmission interceptions:

• Lighting, life support or hydraulics systems malfunctions;
• Nav computer restart;
• Waterline burst;
• Food storage freezer failure;
• Ship logs deletion (later restored from backup);
• Empty lifepod ejection (happened twice on two different signal-receiving vessels);
• Hallucinations of 'void ghosts' being present aboard; 
• Crew member missing and never found.

NOTE 2: my contact has received info about the supposed location of the Miranda Hauler. I will try to learn more.

NOTE 3: time to visit the KD Star Cluster. 

iron pyramids

Ancient (~7Gy?????) alien structures made of iron compounds that weren't previously encountered anywhere.

They were discovered because the particular pattern of interference caused to sensors of the Explorer Drones. After analyzing the disturbances, crewed ships were sent to investigate. 

Zero Nomads, before their departure, had reportedly used their measuring devices on one of the Pyramid (which one?). They claimed that it beams a stream of energry through Nullspace. Years later, the Iyoa Vo was located by an unknown party by looking for the Nullspace-related disruptions.

There may be a connection between the Fallen Ones and the Pyramids. The Prophets started to regularly mention the demonic entities after the AFTERTHEPYRAMIDWAS touched by a human being:

'They Made The Pyramids As Conduits To Amass More And More Power But The Price Of Creating Them Was So High That The Entire Kingdom Collapsed The Entire Civilization Fell From Grace And Become Cut Off From The Core Banished Forever'

- The Blasphemous Prophet

There are five known Iron Pyramids*:

1. Orbiting the Norn Star on highly elliptical orbit (86-232 AU);
2. Near Kralmor's south pole;
3. Buried under the surface of Iyoa Vo;
4. Detected inside the Nehariel Nebula;
5. *) there are many reports about the Iron Pyramid present somewhere on Hephaestus but it wasn't directly located.

6(?) -> Pyramid in the Black Plains? Report of a Dying Explorer states he saw one, somewhere 'inside' the anomaly. 

DR#1 interpretations

Perpendicular to the Vectors may mean being non-human in nature. We do not know who or what was the author of the report. There are rumors about the existence of Artificial Dreamers.
Or maybe it could mean something happening contrary to the Traditions of Pilgrimage - or independently from them. We have no power over forces of universe - over the laws of physics and over the Void.

I don't think that the 'gates' were an object or even an idea. For me they sound more like the limit of perception, the boundary of things that can be interpreted by mind and by senses. And some force was able to 'open' them, thus allowing the Dreamer to understand things unfolding before them.

This might be some entities, denizens of the 'Unknown Beyond', probing and analyzing the Dreamer. But it's more likely that this was the effect of the simplification mentioned before - the Dreamer was able to see them as the 'anti-suns' because his mind was trying to contain it within their frame of reference. 

The next paragraph is the easiest to understand - the Dreamer wasn't alone. It's possible that the Dreamer was invited or lured by the entity. It's possible that the 'Unknown Beyond' was a construct of the entity's own dream.

The entity learned about the Dreamer - and probably also learned about the world outside the slumber, because of the Vectors. It seems that Vectors are somehow interfering with the 'Unknown Beyond', disturbing it.
The question is - are the disruptions caused by the minds of the Pilgrims or by the establishment of the Vectors?

'He comes to undo' - was it the first known mention of the Destroyer? The First Report is really old - it may be older than the Artificial Prophets, therefore older than Secondary Vectors. It's almost impossible to determine.

DR#1