Scavenger

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - 1

Lady Cardei's assets have isolated a series of stellar and planetary phenomena associated with the end of the Second Akala Crisis. Entire star systems appeared from nowhere, and initial reports suggest ties to the Yuuzhan Vong, who came from another galaxy entirely. Conjecture indicates that these systems may have been transported here. Others believe they were always here, but manifestly their gravity has affected dozens of known hyperroutes and system trajectories. Whatever the case, the 'how' of this is no more unbelievable than the vanishing of quadrillions of people during the Crisis. The 'how' likely involves the Force at an exponentially grand scale, and it has nothing to do with my mission. My goal is to explore these worlds for the possible advantage of Ke'dem and Theed Hangar. As a result, I've been given command of a modular Indispensable-class corporate flagship, outfitted for scientific analysis, transport, and precision replication. I have left port at Ohma-D'un and departed Galactic Alliance space for the first of the new objects, which are scattered across the galaxy. This will take some time. Months at the least. But I am not human, and I know how to wait.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - 2

We've reached the first of the new systems. Like most of them, it's been the subject of limited hyperspatial and archaeological exploration. The long-gone locals called the system Adtera. It was a rocky route, but the good ship Fortune's Light is in fine shape.

The system primary is a orange dwarf, main sequence. An asteroid belt, four uninhabited planets, ruins of a fifth, and a single temperate, habitable world: Egktraesta. Not a name meant for humanoid throats.

My survey teams and I went down in full protective gear. The world used to be lush, we think, but the atmosphere rates as a Type Three now. Everything is ash. A supervolcanic eruption and/or an interstellar war wiped out the planet's civilization, it seems, about fifteen thousand years ago. I set some teams to picking through ruins, but there was nothing technological worth finding, other than some indication that a few feral locals may have somehow survived this long. Most of our attention went toward the one chunk of the planet that isn't ash: a forest. We have set up camp and are investigating how this forest could have survived when the rest of the planet is desolate.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - 3

We're still exploring Egktraesta's single forest. We still wear sealed environmental suits. Despite the foul air, though, the forest is bright and lively. The plants are unusually hardy; our biologists have taken point. While they sample and explore, a couple of teams have accompanied me along what appears to be an ancient roadway or path. Somehow, it's not overgrown. There may be something inimical to growth layered underneath the pathway. Using translations gleaned from previous expeditions, one of our archaeologists translated a stone monolith by the side of the trail. The monolith claimed that the trail leads to the 'Shrine of Reamurdta,' and names it the 'Wellspring of the Life Force' or 'The Energy Made Watery Flesh.'

We followed the trail for half a day and found ourselves in a unique location. One of my scientists is Force-sensitive. He and I felt a distinct and unusual presence, non-sentient. The forest shrine, comprised of paths and a living-wood enclosure, is a Force nexus. It projected an odd rippling effect. Once we dared it, we found the Force coming alive in us. We sensed the forest more intimately, and felt our powers expand. It reminded me of when I accessed the nexus in the Valley of the Jedi.

The archaeological teams found no usable technology in the ruins of Egktraesta. Apart from the shrine, the Force nexus, this planet has nothing obvious to offer either Ke'dem or Theed Hangar. I felt watched at several points, likely by remaining feral locals. Contact might possibly be profitable, but we're not in that business.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - 4

The Fortune's Light left the Adtera system. Our next destination was the Arboreus system, specifically the planet Arborea. The system primary has no known name; it's another K-type orange dwarf of the main sequence. Arborea is completely uninhabited, but around fifteen millennia ago it boasted a population well into the billions. It's an arid world with standard gravity, which is a bit of a relief after Egtraesta's 1.2g. The air is better, but not enough to go without recirc/filtration systems. A thirty-six-standard-hour local day gives us a good deal of daylight to work with. Another reason for me to stay in my suit. Sometimes being a Mikan is a colossal inconvenience.

Arborea, was once mostly forest and jungle with some grassland interspersed. Notably, the planet had no seas or oceans; its largest bodies of standing water are lakes, and complex networks of rivers covered the planet. As to where the water all went -- how it got back into the clouds -- how the water cycle operated -- well, the geologists are working on that. It may have something to do with the old marshes. Now, Arborea is just dust and debris. It's a scorched war zone. There are underground rivers, we think, housing the planet's only real life.

The Tre'Shal species once lived here, but they're all dead. Their cities were grown from wood, and some of that has been preserved in volcanic ash. Their technology has endured in some ways, and our engineers think much of it was beyond the level of the Core Worlds. We took relatively few samples on our last stop, but this time around, we filled two whole cargo bays with samples we barely understand. Some pieces of technology have weathered the intervening years better than others. The archaeologists are iffy about taking so much so quickly, but they're here as adjuncts to our expedition, not the other way around. We're basically pillaging Tre'Shal technology, replicating it, scanning it in depth, learning what there is to learn. This one pit stop will likely bankroll the entire expedition, and more ships will follow us.

Mission Log - Addendum

We have left a research team and several prefabricated buildings on Arborea, for ongoing technological excavation.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - Addendum

En route to our next destination. I've received word that Lady Cardei is sending specialists to Egktraesta to examine the shrine more closely. Ordavo, possibly.

The scanning, science, and engineering crews have submitted preliminary reports on the technological samples we recovered from Arborea. There was a near-total lack of military-style technology -- hardly any weapons at all. The identified technologies fall under the headings of environmental processing, genetic manipulation, and agriculture. Arborea seems to have been a post-scarcity society; its inhabitants spent a lot of time on art, as the ash-preserved regions indicate.

Mission Log - 5

Archaeologists call this world Retice. It orbits an unremarkable main sequence star that also boasts an insystem superhot supermassive gas giant. Retice itself is of standard gravity. It seems to have fallen afoul of a supernova in the distant past. A few puzzling trinkets have been found. By and large, however, the planet was destroyed too thoroughly for anything interesting to have survived.

Radiation levels are low to moderate, well within the capabilities of standard radiation deflection badges. Our teams found nothing of use and derived no benefit from visiting the surface. I've given the order to move on. This place disturbs me. I can still feel the last echoes of the agonizing deaths of billions. Sometimes I see their spirits, or visions of what they were: five-limbed starfish-like sentients, not totally unlike my true form. It may turn out that keeping their relics is a mistake.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - Addendum

We've left Retice behind, but several crewers have reported lingering unease. I'm one of them. We catch sight of five-legged forms pinwheel-scuttling around corners. There have been other accounts, probably exaggerated. It's become clear to me that, due to the ground we walked and the unknown artifacts we took, we've become haunted. I'm strongly reminded of navigating my way through that Pius Dea cathedral ship. Unlike the Pius Dea, though, the spirit that's latched onto me isn't malevolent. It's just swallowed up in the memory of pain and loss. It speaks to me, but not in words, cephalopod to cephalopod. I'm still not sure what it says or what it wants. My first thought was that it wanted the artifacts returned to Retice, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Or perhaps that's wishful thinking, because I can't justify turning around.

Mission Log - 6

We've reached the Ultima Domus system and the planet Interitum. Ultima Domus has two system primaries, Facem (Type A, hot blue-white) and Dies Stella (Type M, cool orange). The suns are close together, orbiting each other tightly, and Interitum has a large elliptical orbit.

Interitum is volcanically active on a grand scale. It was once inhabited by several billion, and ruins remain. The planet appears to have been eradicated by a supervolcano eruption. The gravity is a punishing 1.25g.

I've dispatched several teams to the main city's ruins, which appear relatively well-preserved by volcanic ash at the lower levels. Initial scans report intact electronics and solid-state records. Thus far it appears that there was little large-scale agriculture.

A region of perpetual storms surrounds an active supervolcano. The Retice ghost whispers that I should go take a look at death.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - 7

Excavation efforts are ongoing. Interitum has better-preserved remains than our earlier stops. Teams report decayed weapons technology in large quantities, as well as significant records from the deepest levels of the city.

I'm standing in a chamber in the side of the supervolcano. The Force led me here, or the Retice ghost. It's standing with me, a flat, five-legged starship that moves by twirling. I think it's linked to the strange object that I tucked into my belt at its suggestion.

Retice felt like gloom and pain and tragedy on a massive scale; a supernova cooked its inhabitants, including my enigmatic companion. But this chamber has a different aura, explicitly dark, a more intimate kind of tragedy. I believe this place was once used for sacrificial rites over a long period of time. The chamber's unsettling quality, its Force aura, reminds me strongly of the Pius Dea cathedral ship. I suspect these people and the Pius Dea would have gotten along. Technologically sophisticated but barbaric cultures. I'm reminded of the One Sith devotees' ritualistic and superstitious atrocities.

 

[Julius Sedaire]

Research Log, Day 1 -

Several samples were taken from Egktraesta of the local fauna and flora. In particular their trees. We have comms set up with the team on Arborea. There's a possible link or synchronicity I'd like to explore. Ordavo says we need to check out the Shrine and Nexus planetside first though.

As one of the leads in the specialists team sent out from Ke'dem, when I heard of Arborea and Egktraesta, I procured a few potted Force-Sensitive trees and Ankarres saplings. Baselines and contrast points. The late Rave Merrils work may provide some insight into the nature of this other phenomenon. At great personal cost, I have sone details on her work and research on the creation of the trees in the form of lab journals and the like.

My thought at current is to bring them to Exocron when this is all done. If I can grow buildings of Force-Sensitive or Ankarres trees, the potential for a Temple is massive. Particularly for healers and meditative types. Despite the doubts of others, instinct tells me the two halves here are part of one disparate whole.

Regardless, Ordavo beckons. Planetside for me. I'm actually leaving the beskar'gam behind this time. Just the jada blade and standard mission precautions. Something tells me full beskar armor would be over kill. I am trying to leave war behind and discover a me in balance non-extremis.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - Addendum

I've spent several days examining the sacrificial chamber in the volcano and corresponding with Lady Cardei. I get the distinct feeling that I missed certain opportunities at previous stops. I know I was sent to examine things broadly, isolate points of interest for deeper research, but I can't help blaming my own inexperience with the Force. Nor can I help seeing this expedition as a test that I might be failing.

The first site was a shrine that had kept a forest alive on an ecologically wrecked and barren world for a hundred and fifty centuries. I suppose I discounted it because it wasn't of the Dark Side. The second site was the planet of the dead starfish. I discounted it because it made me uncomfortable and I didn't feel like trying to pinpoint important locations on that planet by guesswork. These choices speak to flaws in my perspective.

Fortunately, the sacrificial chamber may be more significant than either of them. Darksiders have meditated on volcanoes before, Lady Cardei says. Brakiss, Sorzus Syn, others. Were these sacrifices designed to appease some imaginary volcanic god, or were the volcano and the sacrifice both elements in something greater, some transformation of perspective? The markings on the walls may indicate both: layers of meaning, gnostically concealed on the surface but clear to clearer eyes.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Mission Log - Addendum

The more I study this place, though, the more the starfish whispers to me that I really did miss something. Perhaps a few of the volcano-worshippers or their victims really were Force-sensitive, and this place became imbued over years or centuries of hit-or-miss sacrifice. And true, it's certainly linked to the ferocity of the storm system that surrounds the volcano. An eternal storm is a terrible and impressive thing. But I compare that to the strength of the shrine on Egktraesta, the energy it took to keep that forest flourishing in a dead world and vile air, and I think the forest shrine wins. I felt stronger there; my powers increased in a serious way. The same is possible here, but only to some degree, and with effort. I wonder if the starfish people traded with Egktraesta's inhabitants, knew of the people of Interitus, fought with them, ran from them, were sacrificed here. Who knows what these systems' relative positions might have been once upon a time in that other galaxy.

The city's excavation teams report that every dwelling had a circular room, ritualized. A symbolic caldera, I think; a symbolic womb, in mammalian terms. That casts a different light on the chamber's inscriptions. Regardless of how the average local perceived the volcano and the chamber, of course, something about this place has kept a storm churning for fifteen millennia.