The Nihil Siphon (WRotP)

[Onrai]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To fulfill prompt 4: "A huge structure is built around the yawning mouth of a black hole."
• Image Credit: https://www.gamersdecide.com/sites/default/files/authors/u153174/4._matter_decompressor.jpg
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links: N/A

SETTING INFORMATION

• Astronomical Location Name: The Nihil Siphon
• Classification: Anomalous Station-Type Object
• Location: The Maw cluster, surrounded by multiple other black holes.
• Rotational Period: N/A
• Orbital Period: N/A
• Size: Massive.
• Affiliation: None. The constructs inhabiting the structure do not appear to have an affiliation to any known galactic power past or present.
• Population: Sparse. The Siphon is populated by a number of amorphous creations made of a liquid metal-crystal that are capable of changing their shape and size as necessary. These constructs do not appear to serve any purpose other than maintenance or operation and will not attack unless provoked, in which case they will attempt to swallow the hostile and electrocute them with some sort of innate power source that animates them.
• Demographics: N/A
• Accessibility: Located within the great Maw cluster of black holes, the Siphon is difficult to reach. While its location is easy enough to find, a specialized ship capable of surviving the intense gravitational forces of the black hole will be necessary if one is to reach it, as most starships would be critically or fatally damaged were they to try to travel to the Siphon. The region of space is also damaged, and ships may find themselves blinking into an unfamiliar universe and back again within a few seconds on their approach, thought the station itself does not have this problem.
• Description: The Nihil Siphon is a construct firmly gravitically anchored to a black hole. The black hole is the remains of some sort of dead universe, where all of reality has collapsed into a single singularity - an Omega Point. The Siphon extracts matter from the black hole and converts it into knowledge about the various species, technology, celestial bodies, etc. that existed within the universe throughout the entirety of its lifespan, storing the data in archives. The Nihil Siphon is populated by constructs that have maintained the device's operation for tens of thousands of years. It appears to have been constructed by an insectoid race, likely the Killiks, on the behalf of some greater deities.

POINTS OF INTEREST

• The Siphon: The Siphon itself is where matter extracted by the greater station is converted into data, through an otherwise inexplainable process. The Siphon is where the most powerful of the constructs inhabiting the station are located.
• The Archives: Within ultradense memory banks whose storage capacity outweighs any presently in use is the recorded information of an entire universe. Though most data is rather basic, some is malignant and may possess or corrupt any machines or vessels which link to it.
• The Rods: Three great mass shadow generators distort the gravitational pull within a circle of a few hundred meters outside the perimeter of the station, allowing sentient beings to exist so close to a black hole and anchoring the construct in place. Destruction of all three of the Rods would cause the Siphon to fall into the black hole.
• The Shrines: Images seemingly out of the book of nightmares fill the hallways, with vestibules dedicated to chthonic and abominable deities. Whoever it was that originally built this creation evidently did so at the behest of some entities whose power must have compelled them.
• The Nest: The living quarters of the station, if such could even be properly defined, is comprised of a mixture of tunnels and catacombs organically formed out of the same unknown material as the rest of the Siphon. Whatever species once resided here was more insectoid than humanoid.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION
My children will reap all that has come. Past, present, and future. Even the dead will know our carrion call as flesh is flensed and knowledge is siphoned. Woe you would deny me, for you invite naught but eternal suffering.
-Tharagorrogaraht, Book of Inevitable Night, Page 17, Sentences 23-27

In an era where beings some called gods and others called demons clashed for control of the material realm, some entities sought to use the resulting chaos for their own personal gain. Such was the case of Gorog, the Night Spirit who would later see her remnants destroyed and her power absorbed. The nightmarish entity's power was as limitless as her brethren, and thus a universe was formed, a place where life grew, evolved, and existed within its own bubble just as life lives in the present. Tharagorrogaraht accelerated the existence of the universe, millions of years passing in mere minutes, until the end had come. All life, all light, all purpose within the universe had been devoured, and all that remained was a single black hole, the consumer of all of reality within the universe.

Her influence over the insectoid beings of the galaxy was put to use, particularly over the great constructors of the Killik race, as a construct was fabricated to turn that of matter into knowledge - this construct was the Nihil Siphon. Shortly after it was put in position and began its purpose, the era of gods ended, and the age of mortals began. From the womb of Otherspace, the Nihil Siphon and its accompanying singularity burst into realspace, creating a wound that has yet to fully heal itself. The Siphon was ignored by all due to the massive gravitational distortions of the Maw Cluster's black holes. It was not until 200ABY that the first detection of it was made - though the location of the Siphon was lost during the collapse of galactic order as the Gulag Virus spread.

Now it waits for those few souls brave enough to see the horrors of the dead universe, to divine fates, learn of principles unexplained, and make theirs the knowledge held within.