Faction The Swarm

[Makko Vyres]

Unknown Regions

OOC/ still writing the intro, not open yet

Hyperspace swirled around the Alliance survey vessel Curious Demeanour.

"How long until we reach the system?" Captain Surea asked.

"Three minutes until we reach system three seven four isk."

"It doesn't even have a name," Surea muttered to herself.

The Demeanour was a small frigate, with a crew of just forty. Dual tanks for long distance travel and large, advanced sensors made up much of the vessel. The crew were well drilled. She didn't have much to do during the deep space journey, but if this became a contact situation she had to act as a representative of the Alliance and make an offer for formal

Surea turned the cup of caf in her arm rest around, grabbed the handle and lifted it to her lips.

Seven weeks ago a report had come in from one of the frontier colonies with a request for Alliance assistance. A scout ship, matching no known profile but displaying advanced characteristics had appeared over the colony. It had scanned them, ignored all communications, turned around and jumped back into hyperspace. It's heading had been system 347.I

The Jedi archives had records that predated the Gulag plague from these regions. For almost a thousand years the hyperspace lanes had been closed after the plague ravaged the galaxy. A lot had been lost.

There was just one relevant record. A rumour of an advanced species who were content to ignore the wider galaxy and focus on constructing perfect cities for their people.

If they were sending out scout ships then there was a risk that this species was considering expansion.

"We're about to drop to realspace."

"Keep all weapons powered down but charge the shield capacitors. I'm not expecting danger, but let's be ready."

The swirls of blue were replaced by the inky-black of space. A bright blue giant star far in the distance. Ahead of them a shattered world.

 

[Makko Vyres]

Captain Surea carefully placed the cup of caf back into her arm rest. She wanted to present a brave face to the crew and that was going to be difficult if she spilled caf down herself.

"Has it been hit by a superweapon?" She asked.

"I'm not picking up a debris field. That's one of the largest planets I've ever seen. Would have been a gas giant, but I'm getting no debris field on scanners."

"It would have pulled us out of hyperspace earlier at full size," Surea reasoned.

"Agreed. Gravimetric readings are all over the place but...it's been hollowed out. Just some of the outer crust that hasn't collapsed yet. I'm reading traces of heavy metals on the spectroscope."

Surea stood up, stepping closer to the windows. She heard of devastating superweapons but this was something different.

"If this has been hollowed out, where did the materials get taken?"

"All around us captain."

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Send out a general welcome message," Surea called out. "All the standard languages. Long and short band. Subspace too."

They were beyond the range of subspace bouys that could send slow signals back to the Alliance. Given what she saw, she was tempted to turn them around and leave.

"Any response? Are there any ships out there?" She asked.

"We've got a response. At least a signal came back on the same band but it's taking time to work out what we've been sent. I'm not detecting any ships but captain...some of these structures could house the entire Alliance fleet."

Surea brought up a holographic representation of the system. There were layers of superstructure built around the star. No discernable pattern to them, but they looked u finished.

"Captain, one of these return messages is an old comm signal. Very old. But it's in Chiss. I can translate this."

"Good position then, keep scanning and get that translated."

 

[Makko Vyres]

It was half an hour before the message was translated. The computer was reprogrammed to pick the message out of the next one more quickly. The Curious Demeanour had a number of computer banks dedicated to adapting to new languages in case they encountered a new species.

"Well this is more mundane than I thought. We'll be connected to flight control but we're in a queue. It seems we're talking to some kind of automated system until then."

Surea breathed a sigh of relief. They were dealing with an advanced race, but there was something comforting in the ordinary.

"Are we picking up anything else from across the system?" Surea asked.

"A confusing mess. I'm getting binary I can't decode from...all around us. Like...a few billion conversations all going on at once, but there's nothing uniform about them. I'll see if I can get anything out of this."

---

They held position for several hours, but didn't hear from anyone. Eventually, Surea ordered them to move and take a closer look at the superstructures.

There were layers of them. A swarm of constructs orbiting the star at speeds that would simulate typical gravity. They were a chaotic mess, no order to them. There were also no life signs.

On a closer I section of a structure the size of a city, they found movement. A drone found machines of all shapes and sizes continuing to build.

As the Demeanour continued it's exploration it found more signs of construction. It was industry at a scale she had never seen.

"Alright, I want to try something new," Surea said. "Ask them if we're in a queue and what position?"

"That worked...it says we are in...position one."

"Then ask how long it normally takes to connect to someone."

"I'm not certain what this has been sent in. I think this is saying twenty seconds."

"Alright, when was the last answer?"

"It says...hold on I need to calculate this. Four hundred and seventy years ago."

Surea sat back in her chair. Four hundred and seventy five years ago the Gulag plague had started to spread across the Galaxy.

"Find me the source of that signal."