CMC: Polonius Archives - a story serial

[saberfysh]

Hello again, PVE! Saberfysh here.

With Rev21 drawing to a close, and Rev22's archaeology theme on the horizon, I present to you a new chapter in the CMC saga, dubbed CMC: The Polonius Archives.

For those who have been following Buzzie71's Unity storyline, which has grown from a monolithic spaceship in Rev11 into a continuing serial (Unity: Origins, Unity: Ancients, and Unity: Diamond Spleef Cup ), you may be aware of a side story called the CMC Starlogs, which further expands on the Unity universe through the perspective of a neighbouring civilization in PVE starspace, the Calendonia Mining Colony (CMC).

Set in the future long after the Unity Diamond Spleef Cup and the USMC Vengeance saga, this story follows a geologist from the Polonius Institute, sent to PVE as a researcher from the newly formed Caledonia Mining Commonwealth (CMC) after the end of the Caledonian civil war. It is aimed that readers who have read the Unity storyline (Rev11) and the CMC Starlogs (Rev15/16). Buzzie's appearance in this story is also considered canon.

The related builds on the map this rev are the CMC Arctic Research Lab (-2950, 1620), and a replica of the Unity spaceship constructed at Alias (-1000, -1000). Certain revs will contain builds that appear separate, but are actually tied together as part of the Unity storyline.

Posts here will be separated for each log entry as opposed to one long wall of text.

Thank you for reading, and I hope next rev will be exciting for everyone!

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

CMC: The Polonius Archives

 

 

Archive #0023: Completion of Laboratory

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

External construction of the Arctic Research Lab is now complete, five weeks after the initial landfall on Zeta Sextantis 1690E (PVE). It goes without saying that the staff is much relieved, given that they’re no longer freezing themselves in the makeshift capsule outside.

 

I was inclined to secure funding from the Institute for a legitimate science vessel, but the directors were wary of sending one on a long voyage such as this. To them, it was more cost-effective to send a small cargo ship and construct the facility on the ground than to risk losing one in the same way as the late Professor Irving, who died enroute while docked inside the original SS Galantes. I also knew that a lot of money was being committed to an upcoming exhibit at the Polonius Museum, featuring Old Caledonian artifacts recovered from the recently unlocked Gamilan Vault. It’s only natural that they accede to the Council’s plans, even if it means cutting back elsewhere.

 

Despite those limitations, we are still on schedule and on track. As expected, numerous refinements from the Galantes MK2 engine since the war have allowed smaller craft such as our cargo vessel to both travel quickly and land safely. We were also given an ATLUS document to explain who we are in case we encounter the locals. In short, we aren’t Caledonians, but members of the Caledonian Mining Commonwealth (CMC). The Galantes Accord at the end of the civil war united all five colonies together, and after the purge of Gamilan governance and the liberation of its people, borderless citizenship and free trade was implemented amongst all five colonies (Caledonia, Gamila, Polonius, Moria, Dynes). Special CMC permits are only required for military and government operations, but we needed one for this research project as the ship was provided by the military.

 

Now that everyone is in better living quarters, I can focus on the scientific objectives at our next meeting. We know there’s higher gravity and some extra compounds in the air that interfere with our metabolism, but there’s still a lot of details to be ironed out. The Institute wants us to refine the spectrometer readings, the orbital period, total planetary mass, then study the planet’s geology and atmospheric composition.

 

That’s all I want our current team to focus on at this point. Even if the Council doesn’t say so, I can sense pressure from above to tie in some secondary (e.g. archaeological) objectives, not just scientific ones. They might even want us to update the Starmap if it still exists on PVE.

 

I don’t expect miracles on our limited budget, but I might send our lab student Milo on a travel assignment to do some exploration with a set of Tobits and obtain a few lifeforms for biological research. It’ll be an exciting change for him compared to life on an asteroid colony. After all, what observations we make here might later determine if the planet is suitable as a long-term settlement.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

 

Archive #0028: Geothermal Systems

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

Our recent discovery of magma vents in the vicinity allowed us to transition away from running purely on solar power nodes outside the lab. We lost a considerable amount of Tobits in the process, but they’ve dug and routed both the magma and the geothermal pipes into reactors just above ground level, which have the double benefit of keeping us warm and providing ample power in the process. This has allowed us to manufacture more Tobits to construct a hangar arm and some basic security systems around the lab.

 

Our initial dig through the ice is yielding interesting results. Traces of diamond and redstone are being found throughout the packed ice, and we’ve built a compactor arm to press the fragments into solid blocks after melting and draining the water. The only issue we’ve had so far is that the ice traps some of the heavy compounds in the air as liquid droplets, which vaporize upon thawing. Suffice to say, water obtained from this area is not fit for consumption without heavy processing. Our latest geological scans were picking up something interesting a few hundred meters down, but we’ll have to get past the ice layer before any deep analysis can begin.

 

The solar nodes are now being used to charge a small buggy for Milo’s upcoming field trip. When our shuttle line to the bottom of the mountain is complete, we’ll be able to send him off with a Sephirator to survey the land and keep track of his vehicle via the radar tower. I’m sending him northeast to bring some samples back to the lab. Hopefully he’ll return with something interesting.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

Archive #0029: Ventures through Flora and Fauna

Entrant: Milo Jasper

Designation: Lab Assistant, Polonius Institute

 

**Video Transcript**

 

(buggy rattles over mountain plain)

M: WOO HOOOOOOOOOO!

M: This is the best feeling EVER!

 

(tweaks camera towards self)

M: Seriously, I’m literally flipping and flappering around the most beautiful place, EVER. Look at this! This is a legitimate homeworld. Endless sky. Endless terrain. Endless life, abundance, and potential, everything! Surely, I am the envy of all that never dared to venture. I have the entire place to myself, I can go miles without a soul in sight! It’s all mine! WOO HOOOOOO~~~

 

(crashes buggy over small cliff)

M: Ugh….

 

(creeper approaches)

M: W-W-What?

 

(CREEPER HISSES)

M: O SHI-

 

(creeper killed by sword slash, camera knocked to side)

M: AHHH-… H-Huh…?

 

(footsteps approach, breathing sounds through mask)

B: Tobits.

M: Wait, how did you…

B: Sephirator.

M: U-Uh… yes?

B: …

B: Come with me.

 

**END TRANSMISSION**

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

Archive #0035: Contact

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

Milo has returned with some local plant life after a few days through a boreal forest and a mountain plain. The geothermal operation has been expanding steadily at the lab, so I’ve had the Tobits carve out ducts for a simple greenhouse below to grow food and large plant life.

 

While the Tobits did their job of repairing damage on the buggy, Milo himself came back worse for wear. I would’ve never guessed he’d go wild with enthusiasm, as it seemed unbecoming of a young scientist, but hindsight suggests I should’ve known better than to let him run loose on a planet for the first time without supervision. Not only did he need Nanobot medical treatment, he kept going on and on about a masked individual named “Buzzie” that resided off the shores of a nearby ocean, who understood our Tobits, our breathing gear, and our language. I was about to dismiss him for the day, until he added that said Buzzie claimed to have helped build the historic Galantes MK2, and is curious about our presence in the mountains. I was quite skeptical that someone like this existed, as many of the inhabitants that encountered us knew little about the CMC. To the frazzled student, however, this was clearly someone who knew a thing or two.

 

Rather than have him irritate the rest of the staff, I decided to entertain the idea, and asked Milo to find this person and bring them to the lab. There are enough Tobits here to stop one person if any trouble arises. I had Emil from mineralogy step away from his work to give Milo a ride, both for extra protection and to increase the odds that they’ll bring this guest back in one piece. It’d better be worth our time, as we’re almost past the ice layer and this little side quest will slow down our research if it takes longer than the last trip.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

Archive #0038: The Masked Maven

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

Our once cold research lab has suddenly been infused with an extra dose of commotion the past few weeks. Not only did Milo make good on his delusions about a certain individual, but said individual grabbed the collective attention of all the research staff with a mere few moves. He was right; there was more to this Buzzie than just a mask.

 

Our first surprise came when Buzzie walked up to one of our Tobits, uploaded some information, and immediately turned it into a translator. This made the ATLUS dictionary redundant. He wondered why our ship did not greet the planet with the customized CMC hailing frequency, as that would’ve led to a proper first contact with the right individuals. After explaining that we were Polonians from the Commonwealth, it made more sense -- this was standard Caledonian military protocol (all previous visits were mining or military convoys), and the Polonius Institute was never educated on such a procedure. With the ATLUS document we had on file, he also learned about the post-war unification, the Polonius Institute, our academic history, and the purpose of this research lab.

 

He then pulled out a piece of quartz and redirected our cluster of Tobits to search for it. This altered the trajectory of our mining by a whole 65 degrees and sent it southeast. I was shocked to learn that he understood how a Tobits swarm operated and was able to instruct them to search for a particular object of interest. Apparently, he had learned the trick from a certain mining engineer, and quartz was a rare mineral used for ancient buildings on this planet eons ago, which meant searches for it had the highest chance of uncovering something interesting.

 

Within days, he had hit underground ruins, and had the Tobits send back pictures of the find. The Tobits were able to crack through a darkened quartz cavern with inscriptions lining the walls. Most of the staff didn’t understand what they were looking at, but after some digital enhancement, Buzzie recognized what it was: protolanguage runes, also known as Cyrenic runes.

 

Realizing what we had found, Buzzie suggested that he spend the next few weeks with me deciphering the runes with his local knowledge and a small pile of books left behind by an old research team at his underwater base. He then promptly left via the shuttle line and informed me that analysis will begin when he returns.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

 

Archive #0043: Cyrenic Runes

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

I knew about the Cyreens from a digital copy of the Seifer Raziel stored at the Polonius Museum, but was no expert on protolanguage runes. Buzzie, however, had spent a much longer time with them, and was eventually able to determine that the temple once belonged to the Church of Lever, and the inscriptions referred to a namesake artifact of their holy capital city, Ishtar. The runes symbolizing Ishtar were larger and more ornate than all other writings, and were standard sigils on the robes of every ruling Pontifex at the time. PVE carbon-dating placed it at a time period as the Ogrians, a prehistoric tribe that went extinct around the same time the Cyreens fled the planet.

 

Having learned about the Institute, Buzzie suggested for this information, along with the images captured by Tobits, to be transmitted back to the curators at the Polonius Museum for further study, in hopes that the artifacts from the Gamilan Vault would provide clues. They returned our message days later, frantically stating they found an exact match of the Ishtar runes on one of the museum exhibition vases, and that its carbon-dated age was only a few thousand years older.  

 

This discovery shocked the Museum staff and the archeologists back at the Polonius Institute. There was now hard evidence that Cyreens may have been on Old Caledonia, thousands of years before it was rendered uninhabitable from nuclear war, resulting in modern-day space colonization. Since it was now physically impossible to determine whether Old Caledonia contained any Keystones or Star Maps due to nuclear fallout, photographs of the Ishtar runes were transmitted back to the Council for further review. They had catalogued some of the objects for the Museum, but were only partially through the Gamilan Vault. There was now going to be a massive cross-referencing of the Seifer Raziel syllabary with any other Vault runes they find.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

Archive #0046: Research Complete

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

Historians from the Caledonia Council addressed us directly today via transmission with a verdict based on all of our combined research. After analyzing the differences between the Cyrenic runes in the Gamilan Vault and the runes on PVE, they’ve established a link between the holy PVE city of Ishtar and the mother of all creation that exists in Caledonian mythology: Empress Eshida.

 

According to the Council, Eshida was the name of the empress that founded early civilization on Caledonia, and the largest moon was named after her. In ancestral times, our homeworld (Old Caledonia) was once known simply as Caledonia, a planet with two moons (Eshida/Gamila) and three major asteroids (Polonius/Moria/Dynes). It was only after the fallout from nuclear war and mass evacuation to the moon, that Eshida was renamed to New Caledonia. After the war, Eshida as a moon was permanently renamed as the de facto Caledonia, and the abandoned, uninhabitable homeworld gradually became known as Old Caledonia. This historical calamity is why modern Caledonians are all spacenoids, and why Eshida disappeared from modern culture. The Gamilan Vault is the last known cache of homeworld artifacts, and is therefore of great historical and cultural importance.

 

The runes found on the PVE Church of Lever ruins and on Old Caledonia artifacts are exactly the same, but pronounced differently, most likely due to linguistic shift. All of it highly suggests that Eshida was a member of the Cyreens, and that PVE and CMC were both sired by the same progenitor race.

 

Council then declared that our mission was complete. We had concluded all of our primary research for the Institute and were ready to send Milo back home with the rest of the research team. Council also decided on that same transmission that I was to remain at the lab to collaborate further with the local inhabitants on updating the Starmap, and that arrangements will be made with Moria to send a PVE excavation team. Once the initial land survey and knowledge exchange is complete, one of their transports will take me back to Polonius.

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

 

Archive #0050: Departure

Entrant: William Euclase

Designation: Professor, Polonius Institute

 

The team spent the evening outside the lab tonight under the stars, as they packed the last of their equipment back on to the ship. Most of them were now convinced that Cyreen protoculture was a very real thing in the formation of advanced civilization in the local starspace, and were eager to see the museum artifacts back home.

 

In the end, Milo was the last one still outside. He was going to miss being on a lush planet with a different view, and wanted to take in as much as he could before leaving. He had heard from Buzzie the exploits of the illustrious lieutenant that discovered this planet, combined both their technologies together, and brought that back to end the civil war and usher in a new age for Caledonia. He was born during the Commonwealth, a time without conflict and discrimination, and now has a newfound appreciation for the common link between us, and the people that fought for the peace that he and the others enjoy today.

 

“The man certainly opened a lot of doors for our kind,” I told the young student. “Perhaps someday, your research will do the same thing.”

 

I was about to guide him back into the lab, but he held still, took one long look at the stars, and with nobody in front of him, broke his silence:

 

"Lieutenant, perhaps it was your destiny to open the doors between us."

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh

[saberfysh]

Archive #0051: Formal Letter to the Institute

 

Addressed to the Honorable Dean and all Associate Directors,

 

I am writing to inform the Polonius Institute of an important archaeological discovery which occurred incidentally during geological research on Zeta Sextantis 1690E (PVE).

 

By now you may have heard from the Caledonia Council of our latest transmission, containing photographic evidence of modified Cyrenic runes on Zeta Sextantis. These runes have been known since its initial discovery from the Galantes LDR mission and were considered unremarkable, but the most recent fragments exactly match Gamilan vault artifacts from Old Caledonia, referencing Eshida, our ancestral mother of all creation. Estimated at 17,300 years old, its etymology has been deciphered by locals and corroborated by our peers at the Polonius Museum.

 

The Council is now prepared to mobilize a small fleet carrying Lagan-class drills from Moria, the deepest tunnel bores manufactured by the Commonwealth. These machines will arrive on PVE and carve out entire caverns in a fraction of the time it takes a cluster of Tobits to extract small lab samples. We have received schematics for a drill factory, but are lacking the ingredients to construct them, so a large shipment of synthetic Reniboride will be included along with the Morian fleet. By the time they reach PvE, this may very well develop into a full-scale archaeological dig. Until then, I will be continuing extended research at the lab as ordained by the Council.

 

I’m humbled that the work of our small geological team has serendipitously contributed to the knowledge of the Institute and to the Commonwealth. It is an opportunity to go beyond studying the planet, and learn something more about our shared history -- the legacy of a progenitor race that connects everyone in the Sapphric Veil.

 

I look forward to assisting the Morians and ask that both the Council and the Institute liaise on our behalf to maintain favourable diplomatic relations between the Commonwealth and the denizens of PVE.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Professor William C. Euclase

Faculty of Geology, Polonius Institute

**THE END**

Edited March 5, 2018 by saberfysh