Corrected Date; After Launch 100.1.1

[This entry is the preamble of the Legacy Lost Historical Encyclopedia Series published for the 100th anniversary of Launch Day. The full Series is available for download to a personal terminal via the Forever Archive subscription service.]

Prelude from “Legacy Lost 1: A Brief History of the Elysrian Exodus” Intended for Education

Long ago, all of us Elysrians, indeed every species (but for our gravity-bound neighbors the sergals) lived in relative peace on our original home planet, orbiting a very large but short-lived star, which we had called Azal. As world exploration and technological progress propelled our people into the industrial era, the distant scientists of the past slowly began to observe many oddities occurring in their home environment and rapid shifts to the world’s ecology. Coordination between the most advanced handful of friendly nations of the time allowed them to realize that it was not a result of the growing impacts of industrialization but from fluctuations and changes in their very own star. The specific histories, and full, established timelines of the world prior to the discovery of the destabilization of Azal can be found in the rest of the Legacy Lost series; these histories account for most documented events until the period just preceding the industrial revolution, which began in a vaguely defined period about 300 years before launch of the “Nascent Dawn”. Over many years, the world’s scientific community began to understand and measure Azal’s expansion and quantify that its energy output was increasing rapidly. As we know now, the star’s life was nearing its end. Elysria would still enjoy enhanced prosperity from the industrial revolution for many decades, which dragged on into centuries and the modern space era. Over that time, the scientific community could commit more and more resources to the study of Azal and development of the scientific principles needed to assess what was going on- and how to react to it. It was a dark day for all Elysria (soon after the advent of nuclear fission and advanced rocketry) when it was factually settled, and globally reported, that there was no way to stop Azal’s effects on the tiny planet- the star was old and dying and was going to go nova one day soon. Opposed to the celestial sense, soon meant in the order of decades as the star was quite massive. In the face of a star that would grow ever hotter and pound their world with ever more heat and energy, the unity between Elysrians was only strengthened, the question of survival becoming the top concern for most, resulting in many people casting aside outdated notions of nationalism or political borders to achieve a single shared goal: the launch of the “Nascent Dawn”. The detailed discussion of pre-spaceflight nations, cultures, technologies, and environments is found in Chapters 1-4.

Throughout this time, however, environmental damage slowly accrued in and ruined entire regions, dismantling those nations and cultures where fresh water became scarce, resources became unfeasible to extract, and plants and animals went extinct at a tragic pace. What little conservation could be performed was, ultimately, in learning how to freeze embryos and clippings for future reconstitution once refrigeration technology had been discovered. Alas, it was after much loss in the natural world. This technology has been refined and iterated on until this very day, where the “Dawn’s” cryobays preserve hundreds of thousands of lives of every conceivable species. Previously strong national identities faltered in the wake of millions being displaced to what locales still maintained temperate zones or appropriate protections. As time further passed into the modern era, most people had moved inland into ailing cities that used immense amounts of energy just keeping their habitation zones cool and condensing water from the air. Immense, apocalyptic storms would scour the coasts and plains before the seas inevitably dried away to empty shores. However, the pressure on economic and survival systems demanded rapid innovation in technology that could mitigate or withstand the environmental changes, and most scientific endeavors were spent on devising these technologies. Outer-field ventures like farming, mining, and long-range transportation did become easier over time after their initial diminishment in effectiveness, but a harsh truth always hovered over every Elysrian: if we didn’t leave this world, we would die. The planet would become fully barren and utterly impossible to thrive on long before Azal destroyed it in its last, final flash of existence. Detailed information on the transition of pre-spaceflight to the Devastation era is in Chapters 5-7.

This era of total environmental collapse meant the governments remaining in the world eventually came to be under the jurisdiction of a single administrative entity as things like borders and ancestry and speciation fell into vestige. This entity was the Global Union, constituted of an Assembly of Representatives from what few city-states remained. The long-term directive, the driving goals of this struggling but unified government were two-fold; find a new home, and have a means to carry the Elysrian legacy to it. Of course, this had to be out beyond Azal space, in some distant star system. As you probably have figured out, that system is where you are now. As soon as rocketry was advanced enough, life support was robust enough, and materials were pure and strong enough, entire sections of the remaining cities were all devoted to the construction of spacecraft, spacecraft parts, and the infrastructure needed for an orbital spaceport. Global research was shifted and dedicated to materials and energy sciences, seeking ways to send people across the stars. Cryogenics, already an established strength from the efforts to conserve the life of the dying world, would play a key role in the mission but the hope was to find a way to ensure that any crew that left the planet behind could also put their boots on a new one, without having to pass through several generations between in sublight travel times.

Two separate divisions of this enterprise were created: The Pathfinder Initiative (PI), set to discover a habitable planet that could be called home, and the Legacy Project (LP), designing and building the colony ship or ships that would save as many people and archived natural life as possible. As there was no way to explore beyond the immediate area of space around Elysria, the PI mostly relied on a vast array of telescopes, radar dishes, cosmic background analysis, and manually examined visual data to look for a promising exoplanet that could become a colony. Many years would pass this way, with most of the remaining Elysrian civilization dedicated to building a massive space dock and all requisite infrastructure needed to sustain its orbital constructions. The LP scientists tried to think of every possibility they could regarding sending themselves to a new home, from “droplet” style distribution that relied on thousands upon thousands of landers, all the way to a single, gigantic vessel that could carry all our people’s future at once. Dozens of prototypes were drawn up, hulls designed and tested, contingencies devised and planned around. However, despite years of astronomy, xenobiology, and stellar cartography, a suitable home was proving elusive. Maintaining any space colony on a world without at least some conveniences already present would be untenable, and the risks too high to guarantee long-term survival. Many experiments sat unusable, their potential unverified, as the future was uncertain. Habitable worlds, even nearly habitable ones, seemed to be truly rare in a cold and deadly universe. Over time and through many trials and errors, the decision was eventually made that a single, large vessel was most capable of supporting the mission. Cryogenic and life support systems benefitted from the larger scale, and people were also acclimated to a unified community in a sprawling and dense space, so a large city ship wouldn’t be too different from the super-urban sprawl of the habitation domes under the dying sun. Further information on the general history surrounding the Global Union, the Pathfinder Initiative, and the Legacy Project are covered in Chapters 8-10.

In the year of Elysria 8123 (BL 22), a physicist named Keyleigh Traya would make a massive discovery to the benefit of all Elysira during the testing of elementary particles, to both projects’ marvel. She had discovered the method to synthesize a special kind of charged particle, eventually named after the physicist herself despite its theory being established in Elysria 8055 (BL 90). However, the key discovery was not in the particle’s synthesis, but in an experiment where the particle was found to allow the rapid travel of matter across space. The rest of the following two sections of the text are a more technical description of this process, as the history is out of our scope and does not have a dedicated chapter, and is advised for advanced readers only; Under specific catalytic conditions, the particle was found to stabilize the fluctuations of the quantum foam over a small physical area. On its own, this was a very fascinating quirk of science, but soon was expanded on to be an astounding breakthrough. As described by her: altering properties of the catalyst environment that allow for the foam stabilization such that magnetic field alignment at particular angles and at sub-Angstrom distances of such “Traya” particles cause the foam, and subsequently time and space, to expand rapidly outward in the opposite vector of the field alignment. She coined the more vernacular description that the effect was somewhat like a rubber “balloon.” The balloon would be “filled” up by the corresponding stimulation of Traya particles, then collapse from the particle source side once the field was dissolved and the particles broken down into their quantum substrates, letting out all the ballon’s “air” (loosely theorized to be converted vacuum energy accumulated from the now-rigid foam structure). The expanding edge of the balloon then is “pushed” into a new space-time while the foam collapses to its natural state behind it which subsequently allowed matter within the “balloon” to cross vast distances. This had the effect of “blowing half the block behind the lab apart as my equipment was scattered across the fabric of the universe- or for about 200 feet because I was working with just what few dozen particles I had made at that point.” She had compelling evidence that the effect was almost instantaneous- far, far faster than the speed of light- if not actually instant, as the precision of the testing equipment at the time couldn’t delineate between the two. The temporal mechanisms in the foam-particle interaction involved to bridge space that quickly were never fully understood, and to this day, remain the single largest flaw of the process. It also remains unfortunate that the Traya particle is incredibly difficult to manufacture, requiring sensitive equipment, special cosmic interference canceling chambers, and vast quantities of energy being dumped into the component materials- rare enough in and of themselves. For civilization at large it was time again to re-tool significant amounts of industry just to support the large-scale creation of what we know today as “jump fuel.”

Around 10 years later in BL 12, the first “Wheeler-Traya Foam Expansion Drive” (colloquially known as the “inflation drive”) was mounted to one of the many earlier devised ship prototypes and successfully tested by “jumping” a ship to one of the gas giants closer to Azal- the tail of which was reported spectacular to see at that time, as solar winds were blowing that world apart. As it were, the effect was not perfectly instant, taking some seconds- but it was vastly superior to any conventional, established travel or even realistically imagined methods of FTL in old science fiction TV shows of the era. Most interestingly, the shipboard computers reported their mission time with zero offset from the jump time. To the computer, the ship had simply disappeared and reappeared in the same moment. Many recalculations, sensor data reviews, equipment checks, and mathematician arguments (and donut takeout) inevitably yielded to the truth: the vessel itself hadn’t experienced a significantly detectable journey time relative to the bubble being generated. Further tests specific to these temporal oddities revealed that for how powerful this “foam expansion” effect was, it could not fully escape the reality of general relativity. After many test jumps, it was determined that mass (and the size of the reaction chamber) had a direct influence on the strength of the “balloon” and the total distance a vessel could travel in one jump. The mathematical model built around the behavior of these tests revealed that a single large jump was vastly more efficient than attempting a series of smaller jumps for any significant degree of mass. Vessels of smaller masses escaped most of the effects of relativity, but were limited in scale of distance. These tests also critically discovered that the amount of jump fuel needed to move a mass followed the same relationship- which was partly theorized to be correlated with the time effects. This solidified the decision to use as large a vessel as possible, as beyond a certain mass (easily achieved by the “Dawn”), the change in relativity was minimal and maximized fuel efficiency. Using a series of smaller ships, less efficient in both technological costs and jump characteristics, would have resulted in even more temporal displacement than what already occurred on Launch Day.

For interstellar exploration, having a live and present observer in distant stars was vastly superior to dated readings taken from home, as light takes years to travel and conditions on any given exoplanet could be different from the observed state of these alien worlds from Elysria based telescopes. Therefore, utilizing the strange properties of the inflation effect, it was imperative that any crewed exploration vessels were as light as they could be and still be safe, and the limited range of individual jumps would protect their crews from relativity. This ensured survey data remained up to date, and removed most of the chance that a distant crew could come home to a much different Elysria, or none at all. Many ships contained only the bare minimum needed for short explorations of specific sets of stars, coordinated by the Pathfinder Initiative.

Thus, as the timer of the doom of Azal ticked on, our not-so-distant precursors lived life as best they could under a further heating planet, and then above it too, toiling away at their last hope to live. With a new, proven FTL technology to move a colony ship across the stars, the “Legacy” ship, dubbed “Nascent Dawn” was adapted and constructed around a newly designed, massive inflation drive core. Since the crew, frozen populations, and slumbering embryos of thousands of species would be making what was essentially a one-way trip due to the anticipated temporal displacement, it was decided their mission, and their launch, did not need backups or reserves on the homeworld. The planet used almost every available stockpile of heavy and radioactive metals to construct the vessel and the appropriate amount of Traya particles for its journey. All the while for the final phase of construction, the explorations for a new home proceeded with renewed vigor and expediency, crews visiting every star they could and making thorough scans of their constituent heavenly bodies.

The “Nascent Dawn” was actually finished some 5 additional years before what we know as Launch Day. It sat at its berth, a shining star all its own, a truly massive structure that could be seen glistening in the sky at any time of day. It had everything a fleeting society could think of needing, and then some more- its own manufacturing facilities, laboratories, telescopes, gravimeters, hydroponics enough for near five thousand people, hangar bays and maintenance docks, asteroid tracking and mining equipment, a small fleet of resource skiffs and its own exploration scouts; and dozens of thousands of cryogenic tubes for travelers in suspended animation. Several sections of the hull could be disconnected as gigantic landers, designed to be the literal foundation of new cities. There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of smaller freezer bays for embryos, seeds, plant clippings, DNA samples, and anything and everything of Elysria that could be saved from the past centuries. Gigantic servers throughout the structure contained vast quantities of scientific and technical data, digitized history, recordings, and just about anything that could be perused as history or culture; which now also includes this text and series. Perhaps the only thing it didn’t have was a way to manufacture its own fuel- but our people were dedicated to finding a perfect home before the ship launched not just for comfort, but for longevity- and thus fuel production, due to its insane complexity and expense, for a spacecraft, was not included. The construction of the “Dawn” and its fleet, as well as the spacedock that bore it, are in Chapter 11.

It was finding the perfect home that the Pathfinder Initiative had been working for decades to achieve, even after the advent of the inflation drive. But for every star visited, for every planet surveyed, for every rock bouncing back a spectrograph- it seemed the universe was dead. Everything was either too cold, too hot, had not enough oxygen, had toxic nitrogen, or a lack of water, or appeared to have water at distance but it was actually liquid methane instead… no planet fit the bill. One such world had too much water to the dismay of that crew, where the storms on the alien world could whip the argon atmosphere into the thousands of km/h range. Not all sights were dreary, however, as the planets of our galaxy can also be wondrous. Entire crusts made of diamond, or weather where it rains molten iron every day. The Global Union was adamant against sending the “Dawn” to a planet that would be too difficult to grow a new civilization on (and many other ethical directives besides), and so all prospects were out for many years. And still the PI searched, dozens of tiny explorers twinkling in the skies of hundreds of unfamiliar and empty planets. Details of many of the PI’s more interesting finds, and more overall information of our stellar neighborhood are in Chapter 12.

Until, one fateful day, an exploratory crew led by the experienced, long-term Captain Zeke Shawson encountered a world in the system C0-R3S, 467 light-years from the old home. It had avoided a survey to that point due to its immediate adjacency to the edge of the Infinity Nebula- regularly visible out the “Dawn’s” windows- but time was running short for our initiative then. It was observed to have a perfectly stable K-class star in its mid-life, and its first exoplanet in the habitable zone. It had a couple of outer planets, which were cold rocky worlds. A single gas giant was at the far edge of the system. It was here, on C0-R3S-I, that the proverbial gold was struck. Scans came quickly with all the telltale signs: It had liquid water, temperate climate, it had primordial plant life, or at least equivalent, and it had only non-sapient animals, primarily exoskeletal creatures. The atmosphere wasn’t perfect, with toxic nitrogen a major part of the mix alongside the required oxygen instead of the ideal argon, but it seemed as habitable as anything anyone could find in decades. The only imposition on a colony would be a simple breather for the outdoor activities. A further dive into the life of Zeke Shawson and his missions are in Chapter 13.

At least, perfect is how it appeared at first. The crew’s excited survey hastily assembled all the required data and a couple of extra passes for thoroughness- but in excitement, did not pay enough attention to the actual acquired data. They immediately returned to cheers and calls of salvation, parties and exultations. Time to celebrate was short, however, as total ecological collapse was near, and new observations revealed Azal’s rapid expansion phase had peaked, and solar energy no doubt would peak quickly after. In no more than a decade or two, the planet’s surface would be fully dead. In haste, the people of the LP and PI seemed to overlook a key fact of the survey of what we now call Coress-1. Somehow, the evidence of our young charges on the planet below your very paws were missed, and even though it was a key mission directive to not disrupt developing civilizations- you know where we are.

So despite that the planet already contained a people, unbeknownst to our well-intentioned families, the “Nascent Dawn” was rapidly prepared for its launch. The evacuation of Elysria began in earnest, bringing the world’s best and brightest scientists, doctors, mathematicians, economists, administrators, engineers, surveyors, explorers and all those that could live in space first, then supplementary crew and passengers on board who were willing to go to another world. Of course, the vast majority of people could not go. No amount or size of ship would ever truly carry millions, and only millions were left of a world formerly of billions. But every walk of life was represented on the vessel, straight from quantum physicists to janitorial staff. Until, finally, and with a great sigh of the most worried of our people as they slid into cryo-sleep, the ship was to be launched. The exploratory fleet docked, the landing barges were secured, and no expense was spared in supply or luxury. There would be no return flight but for a small scouting, and temporal displacement made that a somber task. Only small reserves of jump fuel would be left over, as Elysria had given almost all it could produce of it. The calculations had been completed and checked hundreds of times over: this jump would cost the souls aboard many decades relative to their own home. So in a prismatic display of the weird quirks of reality enveloping and stretching the fabric of spacetime, the vessel finally popped out of existence above its original home, nearly a decade after its first completion. Many decades later, at least to the perspective of anyone else, it would shear into place in orbit above C0-R3S-I. The crew didn’t see anything but a blink of an eye. The sleepers saw nothing at all. The first thing checked was the integrity of their own orbit, our orbit. The second was to detect any signals in space. There was one immediate ping- a tiny probe, with a final message from home. The skies had burned away under stellar fire and what few people left had moved completely underground to await the true end, and all infrastructure to reach space had been compromised. Telescopes brought to bear on our original home system revealed a somewhat melancholy perk of FTL travel: We could observe our world as it was 300ish years ago. With a massive telescopic array, observing our ancestors slowly build up their industrial age was a unique peek into the past. A single scout was sent to confirm that at what was now called AL 0, the homeworld was nothing but a molten rock, soon to be swallowed by a swollen star. A weak static came from the hot nebula nearby the “Dawn”. We remember this occasion every year as Launch Day on the new calendar. The final images, snapshots, descriptions, and memories of the original homeworld in its run to Launch Day are found in Chapter 14.

The appearance of the massive titan “Nascent Dawn” had two effects though: first, that its suite of technology, much larger and more sophisticated than the initial survey, easily detected the signs of sapient life on the surface. Second, its huge mass pulled and tugged on one of the planet’s closer moons, assessed to have already been in a decaying orbit, but now rapidly accelerating toward the surface. A problem a hundred thousand years in the making became a few hundred years. It was yet another regretful oversight of a culture that had prided itself on thinking of everything- a simple added mass to an already decayed orbit. The problem at hand, however, was the rapid dissemination of the fact that a developing culture already lived on Coress-1. A massive inquiry was launched, but no information from that investigation ever revealed anything but accidental incompetence. The hearings, investigations, committees, rulings, and eventual sentencing would take years. Not long after the public legal system made its rulings, the scout ship captained by Zeke Shawson went missing in space. As he had led the mission that originally found Coress-1, the timing was dubious. There has never been any evidence to suggest a connection between the two events, but some on the “Dawn” are skeptical of the circumstances.

The Captain of the “Dawn”, at the time Captain Lapis, and the senior rehabitation management all agreed: No settlement was possible at this place, with the planet decidedly belonging to its own inhabitants. But the “Dawn” couldn’t jump either. We had no fuel for it, and no way to make any. It had no sublight engines to speak of, as it had been intended to be taken apart at its destination. It would be a very long, very arduous road to adapt and change the nature of our ship and our mission to keep our people aloft. Plans were made immediately though, and restructuring of our society began. The results you can see all around you. For more details around Launch Day and the individuals involved in it, see Chapter 15.

Firstly, we needed more people, more experts, and more hands to work. The landing craft were disconnected from the hull, leaving the “Nascent Dawn” with extra space to fill with what was needed as it became evident, and the ability to offload and construct additional facilities on the barges that would never touch land, as they had been designed. Instead they floated, in locked orbit with the “Dawn.” Today, these mark the headquarters and primary places of work for each division of TAIL. For more information regarding the history of the command of the “Dawn” as it transformed into TAIL, see Chapter 16.

As more life support eventually came online, and the extent of the already existing culture on the planet established, operations were planned and conducted to draw up water and air enough to turn systems that should have only lasted a couple of years into ones that could last decades- and still do. Many people thawed were used to such conditions really- a spaceship wasn’t far off from the sterile and shielded cities of the homeworld. Not all were happy with this outcome, though. They were promised a new home before they were frozen, and instead, they were given the void. These grumblings would fester through generations. For more information on the technical aspects of the “Dawn” evolving through time, refer to Chapters 17 and 18.

The rest of the exploratory fleet could still run on their conventional, sublight power and what little jump fuel remained, and were sent to every other world in Coress to assess resources available, and by any stroke of luck, just enough raw materials to produce more Traya particles were found. It would take many years to build a synthesizer, especially on the “Dawn”, and while the engineers and scientists worked through those problems, various smaller mines and outposts were put on each world throughout the system. Additionally, small research outposts were hidden carefully under the waves of Coress-1, or high in the mountains, to observe and report on the many wonders of that world. For more information on the initial establishment of the Elysrian trade network, see Chapter 19. Information about “sergals” and their study, culture, and the eventual uplifting of certain individuals from special cases of contact are found in Chapter 20.

Eventually, small amounts of jump fuel were being made and ships could reliably make trips to other systems nearby, some surveyed already, some not. More outposts and mines were built, tiny trade routes established. The government of this ship, as the population kept growing and more operations could be outsourced to stations not on the “Dawn”, grew into a new entity. For the sake of simplicity, no formal national identity has been established, only a description of the most important aspects of the new mission. The Technology, Administration, Industry, and Logistics divisions each share a ruling vote and much of the work needed by the fledgling society to function. For a brief overview of the current administration of TAIL, see Chapter 21.

As of AL 100, at the time of this writing, in the cold reaches of space next to a jewel we can only view and never touch, the last of us from a world once known as Elysria struggle with our reality. The ship is cold and old, the hull battered and bruised. Outposts and ships struggle to operate as they once did, and the question of what we can do but survive is constantly on our minds. But at least we live, and carry the memories of those who once did with us. We remember that Elysria once lived.

Corrected Date; After Launch 101.4.27

[This entry is the start of a featurette from Trail of Dawn reporting to all TAIL entities on their head of Administration, Onyx, including a casual interview.]

In seeming opposition to her impressively professional pedigree, Onyx detailed that her childhood- between diplomacy sessions with her father [Administrator Zircon]- was quite socially wild.

“Well you know I was always trying to sneak away to see my friends; who I dearly love to this day, heyyyy guys- we’d do all these little, I guess you could call playacts. We’d imagine we were on a fantasy quest, crawling through the halls of dungeons, a swarm of screaming children attacking some poor dragon crew member that we’d “slay”. Most of them learned to avoid the corridors we’d be in, but then we’d just migrate to the next one we thought was most traveled [laughs]. There were also these old science fiction programs in the Archives we’d become obsessed with all at once and “commandeer” an observation lounge to pretend to be deep space explorers, or ship’s officers and catch anyone trying to relax after a shift by accusing them of actually being an invading alien and peppered them with foam darts. Most of the crew would crack even a little bit of smiles and I learned so many of their names- the same names I like seeing in my reports today! Dad was always so annoyed with me every time he heard about our little misadventures, but I think looking back, what I thought was scolding was actually a kind of hidden endearment- he never really put me down for these things and seemed to enjoy knowing I could always find a way to have fun- which has definitely not changed- remember we’re having my birthday party at VRC in three weeks!”

While Zircon rarely discussed his personal life while in the political circuit, and was always measured and composed in all appearances in his official capacity as Head of Administration, Onyx is only ever a beacon of positivity, hope, and enjoyment of life, no matter how casual or unprofessional it makes her seem. The unsinkable heights of Onyx’ jubilations in all things she does can be genuinely infectious. In a period that seems indicative of just how dark and dreary our place against the backdrop of space is, Onyx seems to be a shining star- even in the midst of her duties. She has a way of bringing her carefree attitude to bear on the issues of Administration that is a refreshing change of pace for many on the Dawn- it’s a significant factor in her election performance.

“Oh yeah there was all the “legacy” talk all the time. Dad was so stuffy with it, constantly trying to get me to take my place in the history of the ship seriously, trying to get me to read all my grandpa’s treaties and the old Union declarations, just like Grandpa had done with him. And you know, I did actually do that, but I made it fun! I would make Dad pretend to be the audiences or the delegates, whatever was appropriate. He grumbled every time, but he never really said no. I miss him a lot. I think he had learned that he was the product of his time, but that he didn’t have to make me one too. I know I can make him and our legacy proud as he wanted, just in my own way, by really pushing us into the future! Enough with this “things will come” attitude, we’re going to go take it! Slay that dragon!”

Following this interview, Onyx announced that several restrictions on the exploration of the nearby nebula- long deemed far too dangerous to enter for its high degree of energetic material and radioactive output- were being lifted and plans were underway to sanction missions into the hot gas.

Corrected Date; After Launch 102.8.16

[This entry is the start of a featurette from Trail of Dawn after the success of the Onyx interview, following up with a program that takes aim at Head of Industry, Akton.]

After the explanations of how exactly the Heftus platform can fabricate any material needed, but perhaps not as quickly as needed, Akton was eager to share his hopes for the future.

“I know some say we’ve stagnated a little bit over here… but my crews can make anything! It’s just the.. you know. Backlog is a little big at the moment, and we seem to get more orders faster than we can fill the old ones. But that’s okay too! We’re talking to Maven outpost about stripping out the old processing equipment there to shore up production here. That old mine is dried up. I do still need to get Apoma to actually sign off on the transfers because it will need a couple of freighters, but I’m sure that’s no big deal. She’s busy. She’ll get around to it. With some of that equipment recycled, we can improve output by 12%. I think. Stannis is better with the numbers. I’m definitely better with my paws.”

While he didn’t seem to understand why our producer was laughing, the levity was welcome. Much like with Onyx, Akton’s attitude is a refreshing change of pace from his predecessor, who never budged from traditional thinking- which is why his foundries never grew. Everything had a place, even if that place was off and gathering space dust. Akton has pro-actively managed to collect, organize, and utilize much of the equipment around him into more efficient supply chains, or at least most of the time. Speaking to many of the engineers and machinists on Heftus, they were very appreciative that Akton followed through with his campaign promises, even if the dog was a little inexperienced. Certain critical processes had not been addressed by the well-meaning Akton, which apparently were a result of trying to do too much too quickly for a manager of his age, and a lack of true understanding in -every- aspect of the forges. These delayed steps, which have been the rate-limiting processes for a while, have been the cause of several engineer petitions in the past, which may be unknown to the enterprising division Head. The crew did report that overall work had improved, however, for both the time-to-finish and quality of the output materials and the doing of the work itself, as their shifts had shortened a bit and the workload eased due to better parallelization.

“I know what you’re thinking. Why give my crew more breaks and more Dawn leave in the face of that order queue? Personally, I subscribe to the idea that a happy worker is a better worker. And it’s not like the work just doesn’t get done- I go down and help myself some days. Some of the machines were moved to get products closer to their next step- some areas cleaned up or new hallways smashed through. I meant it when I said I wanted a better factory. I wanted better worker treatment. I wanted a brighter Heftus for all TAIL.”

The grease stains on his uniform and gloves were a testament to that commitment, evidence of a leader that worked right alongside his subordinates to get things done. How that can translate into a better state of the Dawn is yet to be tested.

Corrected Date; After Launch 103.13.11

[This entry is a portion of a recording from crew members of the Baxton, a survey vessel equipped to push the deepest into the Infinity Nebula yet; transcript below]

Technology Officer Silver: I don’t know, sir. It’s just.. weird. I can’t describe it any other way.
Administration Officer Xeve: “Weird” isn’t really a technical term, Silver.
Silver: The readings don’t make sense. It’s like reality just.. shifts there. The sensors are working fine, they register everything else in this soup. I’ve accounted for the radiation, the EMFs, even scan echoes off the rocks- that spot is just weird. There’s traces of massive energy output, then nothing, over and over.
Xeve: Well then I guess we better go check it out. That’s why we’re here.
Logistics Officer Fuddin: All right, charting and changing course folks.
Xeve: Distance?
Silver: 150 kilopaters. Closing.
[silence]
Silver: This is getting.. worse? Better? It’s swinging wildly.
[sounds of quiet console alerts and minor alarms]
Silver: Woah. These readings are crazy. Computer can’t tell if we’re looking at an asteroid or a black hole… scanners can now resolve that the anomaly is throwing exotic particles at random then being totally dead.
Xeve: Can we use visual?
Silver: Maximum magnification. Yeah.
Xeve: What is that? Lightning? In space? Why is the asteroid there moving like that? Silver, what have you got?
Silver: Well sir, we’re in a thick nebula, and that probably gives a conductive path for the lightning, so yes.. but its definitely not… normal. Something in or around that rock is rapidly charging and discharging enormous energies, it’s throwing all the scanners off from being overwhelmed to basically detecting nothing. I think I can…
Xeve: Let’s hold distance here, Fuddin.
Fuddin: Yeah… I agree.
Silver: Yes, there is definitely a correlation between the discharges and the ambient pulses of radiation.
Xeve: Okay, the rock looks like it’s literally turning liquid and reforming right after. I guess that I can consider “strange.” Do you know why yet?
Silver: I… the sensors can’t resolve it. The computer is just giving an error because apparently it’s just.. rock, and yet we’re watching it move around like its molten from something, despite thermal scans being… normal, at least for this part of the nebula. There’s a mass discrepancy though, the interior of whatever that is seems to be much denser than what just a rocky astero- wait, it’s pulsing again.
[minor alarms]
Xeve: So the rock.. parted? Reversed? What is that bit poking out there?
Silver: Scanners can barely filter out the radiation sir, but are detecting some kind of.. crystalline structure. It seems to be the source of the exotic particles, and I wager, the lightning… its completely unknown to the database.
Xeve: Completely unknown. And from what I can tell… the crystal doesn’t shift but the rock does.
Silver: Appears so, sir.
Xeve: We’re going to harpoon a few of the rocks around here. I think we need to nudge our little anomaly out of the radiation zone.
Fuddin: I’ll uh.. do my best. Wide berth on that one.

Corrected Date; After Launch 104.3.19

[This entry is from a recording within a lab deep inside the maximum safety zone on the Xandri Platform, home to most of the Technology departments’ bespoke operations; transcript below]

[a bear is tapping a glass enclosure containing a large green crystal]

Head of Technology, Stannis: We’ve had to isolate the specimen from all external EMF. Even minor sources make it impossible to trace specific pathways in the structure. And even though we have made several traces, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of logic in the outcome that we can see- yet.
Onyx: Well Stannis I’m sure if anyone can figure it out, it’s you and your staff. You’ve never let us down.
Stannis: You flatter me, ma’am. It took a month just to get the source asteroid far enough away from the nebula to secure even this small sample. The crew then used a probe to transport the specimen through a jump, fearing any effects quantum foam inflation might have on it.
Onyx: Oh come on Stannis, we know this, what are you trying to say? You don’t have to beat around the bulkhead with me.
[a brief pause]
Stannis: I fear figuring out this structure will take a significant amount of time. There is some inherent danger. There’s also a lot of testing to be done. I’ll be right here for it all. Even so, yes, a great deal of time. Which is a shame, because when I saw the recordings from the Baxton I felt… excited.
Onyx: Oh stars above, you, excited? You have to tell me about it, Stannis.
Stannis: [grunts] Look Onyx, whatever this crystal is, however it actually works- it was actively manipulating the physical structure of the rock it was encased in. And not just in the nebula, in all that energy. We got it to… well. Here.
[the bear opens a nearby drawer and takes out a piece of sheet metal, with strange wave patterns and large peaks and troughs]
Onyx: Oh? A gift for me? :3 I just wish I knew… what it was?
Stannis: You really are unwaveringly pleasant as always, my friend. We didn’t put this in the initial report to not get anyone’s hopes up. Well, they brought mine up. But this panel used to be one of the sides of the chamber here. When we first isolated the specimen, we just kind of… well, truthfully, we just threw random arrangements of electrons and photons at it. We thought the intensity was low enough, but alas. That entire panel became… this.
Onyx: It is pretty! But truthfully, I’m not sure what the implication is. Some fantastic wonderful development from your expert mind, yes?
Stannis: [another bemused grunt] It means that when we figure out how to control this effect- we can control metal. We can shape any bit of scrap into anything we want. It’s not just rock or making lightning… we could precision manipulate any material on the Dawn into doing whatever we want it to.
Onyx: Oh! I can finally get my counter to be perfectly straight!
Stannis: Onyx…
Onyx: I know, I know. I understand. If you think it prudent to keep this under wraps for now, I defer to your expertise. But genuinely… that’s an entirely different kind of excitement, I agree.
Stannis: It could change everything. Which is why I think it needs to be handled -very- carefully.
Onyx: And you shall have full jurisdiction of that. It may be time to review our cryo rotations, though. I predict we may need some more crew soon.

Corrected Date; After Launch 105.6.1

[This entry is from a featurette of Stannis, the Head of Technology by the Trail of Dawn, this interview being done shortly after the official opening of the Crystal Application Wing of the Xandri platform]

-even in dire emergencies, Stannis remains calm, level-headed, and particularly competent, as he details.

“I don’t find it particularly significant. I know that with the proper course of action and everyone performing their part, anything can be achieved, any crisis averted. When the Propulsion Labs had that fire outbreak, my team and I knew that we had precious few minutes to reach the propellant tanks and cut-off the supply. The automated system, like so many on the Dawn, was not quite working when needed. I had full confidence in my subordinates and myself, and we fought through depressurization, hiccups to the mag boots, and the fire itself to achieve success and guarantee the safety of the platform. We needed to adjust several tools on the fly and use knowledge of the lab spaces that few else had. I did my job, as did they.”

While downplaying the risks of such actions may seem like excess humility, Stannis is truly a believer in practicality. He doesn’t see these as heroic acts, more like the logical outcome of a strictly meritocratic approach to running the Technology division. He personally oversees the staffing of every project and is regularly found leading the crews right beside their experiments. How he has time for such hand-on science was a question at the front of our minds:

“I find little enjoyment in the more trivial distractions of the ship and platforms. I may rarely join a party at VRC- usually Onyx’s doing- but I prefer to stay hands-on in the labs. If I am not in the labs, I am reading literature. Within them though, I can direct the new assistants, help coordinate the analysts, give advice on configuration and study protocol. I find that to be much more interesting anyway. There is something, even before the crystal came in, about trying to improve lives here in space. There is something about a puzzle where you didn’t realize you started it and an end you cannot see. Now that the crystals are being tested… it’s even more fulfilling. There is a genuine hope, and energy in our Technologists that I haven’t quite seen before. We all know what the implications are. We all know that there really is a new dawn, just over the horizon.”

Stannis further expounded that some of his favorite books to read are actually old science-fiction periodicals, from ancient Elysria. He let us know that the imagination of the ancestors helps inspire him to come up with new ideas and tests in the lab, and wanted to reiterate for our readers that anything really is possible, as long as you stick with it.

Corrected Date; After Launch 106.5.14

[This entry is a recording of a demonstration by Stannis and his Crystal Applications Wing staff, before an audience of TAIL leaders and the ship’s media outlets; transcript below]

Stannis: Furs and scales of the Nascent Dawn. We are proud, excited, and even ecstatic [there’s a laugh from Onyx, whom Stannis rolls his eyes at], to show to you today what we have been working on for the past two years with the Infinity Crystal specimen. As you can see, we have the shard with the least amount of extraction damage connected to our Stimulation of Crystal Keyer, this device here. [Onyx can be heard stifling a giggle]

[he is pointing at an infinitely complex series of thin wires, tubing, and indicator lights around a cylinder]

The Stimulator is the result of thousands of hours of testing with a variety of inputs including both pulsed and sustained that include energetic, electrical, electromagnetic, photonic, and elementary. Thanks to these trials and errors we have finally achieved a measure of limited control over the emissions the crystal produces when exposed to these stimuli. The most appropriate way to show this is to simply demonstrate it.

[there’s some concerned chattering around the room]

I assure you all, there is no danger. We have assessed the effect thoroughly on organic matter both living and otherwise with our isolated control scheme, and the directed nature of our manipulation ensures that only one element can be manipulated at a time. In addition, the range of the effect is much easier to control than the outcome.

[the chattering ceases, Onyx can be seen with a huge smile]

Ahem, yes, Danye, if you please.

[an assistant shuffles to the middle of the room to put out a small box of steel]

Thank you. Once again furs and scales, I give you… our realized future.

[he actives a few buttons on a tablet and there is a flurry of activity on the SOCK with lights flickering on and off and tubes pulsing as if having material flow- the inside of the crystal begins to glow with beams of light that refract a million times before there is a shimmer and a woosh, the metal box warping and shifting into a little scale model of Stannis himself over a handful of seconds before the crystal goes dark]

[there is a stunned silence for a moment before the audience erupts in questions and fervor]

Please, please everyone. One at a time. I promise I have dedicated the future of this platform to this technology, and to help all of you to learn it and our studies. With this, we can literally shape whatever destiny we want from here on out.

Corrected Date; After Launch 107.7.2

[This entry is an issue of a now rebranded Trail of Dawn, offering a refreshed look as the official news source of the ship, now called Sunrise News]

The Sunrise News of 107.7.2 – Crystal Comforts

Since last year’s explosive reveal of the secrets of the Infinity Nebula- the matter crystals- Technology Division has only improved on the convenience and robustness of the application of these little miracles- and mysteries- of quantum physics. It was not even six months ago that Tech and Industry came together to create the first carbon unilateralization matrix, which can seamlessly convert standard diamond or carbon fibers into insulated carbyne strands that are woven at the atomic level into thin, unthinkably hard, metal-like sheets. A process like this on Elysria would have been prohibitively expensive and slow. The sheets can be made to specification with just a few parameter changes in the crystal controller. This unprecedented level of manipulation over materials manufacturing has already thrown Industry into a frenzy with replacing the old, decaying outer hull of the Dawn with this new material, and at speed. The best part of this process is that the old carbon fiber sections of the hull can be immediately recycled into the new material and becomes effectively brand-new. There is little extra mining or cargo hold scouring to be done, so we can understand why Industry is so prolific with this new process. Apparently smaller versions of the device are being prototyped to be shipped out to the many mining and farming outposts in and out of system, so their struggling infrastructure may also be replaced.

On top of this already swelling stride to uplift the lives of everyone in TAIL through desperately needed replacements of the basic infrastructure, the explorer fleet is also being equipped with new, even lighter types of carbon “armors.” These are even capable of small amounts of passive radiation protection, easing the burden of traditional deflection and capture methods. Head of Logistics Apoma was reportedly using a gantry system to throw empty Cat5 crates at a retrofitted freighter, to “test the performance if a micro-asteroid struck it.” The freighter went unscathed. The crates and the crane did not. Ships and crews are quickly being recalled from “standard” explorations in order to undergo the refits and begin scouring the Infinity Nebula for more samples of the crystals. The journey is perilous, and Technology is still unsure of what a fully saturated crystal might be able to do to machine and flesh alike.

For the future, Tech and Industry are already hoping to expand the available level of interactions with the crystal “fabricator” technology by learning how to exploit multiple elements at once, a process that Head of Industry Akton was adamant would allow for rapid and sweeping changes to how systems and functions on the Dawn operate and get maintained. He was insistent that even small decreases in the sizes of things like transistors, easily achievable by a multi-element fabricator, could catapult all of Elysrian civilization into a brand new type of existence. We’re somewhat skeptical of the scope of that statement, but look forward to whatever other miracles this crystal based technology can achieve.

Corrected Date; After Launch 108.2.14

[This entry is a return to the featurette series on TAIL by the refreshed Sunrise News, covering the final Head, Apoma of Logistics]

Even with the difficulties in actually cementing down an interview with the illustrious Logistics leader, testimonies from her crew were in large supply. Many reported that the sergal, who had been brought up the Dawn at their equivalent of teenage years, was fiercely intelligent and protective of her charges, both living and material. Many reported that she would actively intervene in orders from Administration that even had a small chance of endangering her pilots, or personally managing cargo manifests that would overwhelm less experienced lift and trolley operators. A particularly interesting pattern emerged from several crews that the Head of Logistics was not afraid to bend the rules- sometimes quite literally. She had a knack for applying the unique gravitational patterns of the Dawn’s spin to boost or arrest movement, stow crates, and otherwise move around the cargo bays and hangars. When finally she did agree to an interview, she was terse but passionate about these traits, and her crew too.

“Yeah? And? If I waited for everyone in Admin to have a clue, half our outposts would freeze over. I’ve got pilots making runs with just barely enough fuel to get there and back, and the pen-pushers want to have them wait at Lagrange just for some performative inspection. This delays them on MY schedule. Which means the shipments to other places get delayed. Which means the shipments -back- get delayed, then Industry is crying, then Admin cries, then Tech wants to get involved with some new-fangled solution. Which never really addresses the actual problem. These crystal things they made though… those are good. I like those. They give me some new actual physical things to use. I can tether thirty boxes together with that carbyne stuff and the line won’t snap, even when I’ve got them doing one-sixty turns. That’s nice. Not giving back the fabricator that was supposed to go off to Admin though. What do they need it for?”

The staff of Sunrise elected not to remove the final comment in the interest of completeness. The not-so-subtle disdain that Apoma has for the bureaucracy of our fair ship is evident, but even Onyx agrees that she does what she thinks is best for everyone as a whole. The fabricator in question was the third sent from Heftus to the Dawn, and a fourth is coming. Out of curiosity more than anything, we did spend a few of our precious minutes with the busy-bee asking about how she felt being on what is essentially an alien spaceship.

“I don’t really remember much of my childhood. There wasn’t… it was mostly like chores, I guess is the word. If you wanted to know what I think about you guys having been up here. You made the right call. They’re not ready for it down there. We already worshiped the moons. Imagine learning that one of the stars in the sky is actually watching you. As for me, I think this ship suits me just perfectly. I do what I want when I want and I know I’m doing something important. Now get out of the way and let me get back to work.”

Corrected Date; After Launch 109.13.4

[This entry is an emergency alert from TAIL Command, sent to all TAIL members in the Coress system]

PRIORITY ONE ALERT – NASCENT DAWN and All Platforms Emergency

Official TAIL Order: All TAIL crew and staff are ordered to immediately evacuate the Furor Platform as a result of a massive exoergic anomaly that has caused catastrophic damage to the platform and severely altered its orbit. Secondary damage to the nearby Shaihud Platform is still being assessed. Star Wardens are dispatched to provide what aid they can with Hornet squadron and ship-board officers. Platform emergency control systems are non-responsive, and fires have broken out across its surface. The Platform has additionally been rapidly accelerated into a sub-orbital trajectory and projections place impact in sixteen days. There are currently no solutions to this projected path.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TRAVEL TO THE PLATFORM

If you have family, loved ones, friends, or acquaintances whose status you are seeking to know, observation rooms in the Fang deck are being converted into temporary infirmaries and coordination centers for the evacuation effort. Before communications with the Platform were disrupted, automated personnel logging reported 637 members of TAIL on the Platform. The Live version of this dispatch will continuously be updated with the names of personnel rescued from the platform, the number still missing, and confirmed casualties based on physical discovery.

PLEASE AVOID CRITICAL HALLWAYS AND HANGARS

TAIL is asking that all citizens in the emergency zone not tasked with the rescue operations to remain in their quarters for the duration of this emergency as to not slow emergency operations. We understand this may be difficult for some of you as many quarters are undergoing renovations following the advent of fabrication technology, but we implore you to find shelter and wait until the full impact of this incident can be determined.

INITIAL REPORT

While exact details of the cause of the anomaly are unconfirmed at this time, computer analysis shows a striking similarity between the explosion’s energy profile and the profile of emissions from the crimson crystal variant recently recovered from the Infinity Nebula. Administration division has not responded to any requests for comment about this discrepancy, however, Stannis of Technology was sighted rushing down a hallway on the Dawn with his normally calm and controlled demeanor overwhelmed by anger. This entry will continue to be updated as information is revealed and verified. A total accounting of the accident may take some time due to the cataclysmic nature of the damage.

Confirmed casualties as of time of your access:
Opal
Anev
Unconfirmed/missing: 635

Corrected Date; After Launch 110.6.4

[This entry is an article from Sunrise News reporting on the various happenings of the Dawn and TAIL in this time, the sting of the crashed Furor platform still fresh]

Sunrise News on 110.6.4

The Trials of Technology

Today marks the sixth month anniversary of the Furor Accident. The hulk of the platform has been deemed a total loss and will forever reside on Coress-1. Impact to the sergal population has been recently decided as minimal, as the main structure seems to have sunken down into the ground and been surrounded by dirt and rock in a region already sparse of the jovial folk. As the angle of impact saw the platform wedge into the planet on its side and sink into unstable and weak porous rock, the effect from the ground is rather striking- the twisted and broken metal looks not unlike a small mountain range. Anthropologists hope to use fabrication technology to reinforce that illusion by sealing entrances and encouraging soil deposition on the structure, which will then promote flora growth. They emphasize the actual impact event was definitely noticed, and will be divined as many other things, but unlikely as a spaceship crash.

TAIL has been tight-lipped about the cause of the accident to this day, only confirming that the Administration Division had been experimenting with a crimson crystal on their own, away from the tight controls and contingencies of the Technology Division. As to why or how this apparent oversight and lack of accountability occurred has yet to be revealed to the public. The fact that at ground zero, where the accident occurred, had an access log showing Head of Administration’s sister was present along with a member of Technology has not dissuaded a deluge of rumors about a conspiracy of nepotism and incompetence on account of Onyx’s administration, specifically the Head herself. Her only responses to these allegations were to decry the loss of her sister and all her crew members on the platform that perished that day, with other department Heads backing up the statement that there is simply no way Opal had access to such a material on her own, and Onyx would have -never- given her sister that access knowing its dangers. The public has been split on accepting this response, as it explains very little.

Which is not to say that crimson crystals are a bad thing- their ability to restructure and amplify energy into other forms instead of just shifting matter has unlocked a veritable cornucopia of technologies and practicalities. Refinements to the transfer of energy inside inflation drives, for example, have seemingly reduced or otherwise eliminated the effects of relativity from our fleets. Mission clocks now show no temporal displacement after jumps on the transport and exploration ships. While they pale in size and mass to the Dawn, outlooks on the future of our position, and unintended damages, here above Coress-1 have improved dramatically. Many of the crew aboard the Dawn would also love to report to you, outpost dwellers, that the new gravity plating installed in quarters, hallways, and everywhere they can squeeze them, work like a dream. Some of the older members of the ship and newer awoken crew have stated it really does feel like how they remember Elysria being. This artificial gravity will be rolled out sequentially. Ion drives amplified by crimson crystals have seen outputs push into new orders of magnitude, allowing otherwise distant worlds to feel like close neighbors when a jump is unwarranted.

This is not all however, as once again Technology and Industry have come together to revolutionize many aspects of life here in space. By combining both veridian and crimson crystals, materials and chemical engineering have never been so advanced. Formerly impossible reactions are now trivial, and the energy density of things like fertilizer has rapidly increased- the food shortages of the past are now a distant memory. Construction of advanced electronics or ship systems have had their processing times cut 90%. Most important of all, however, is the realization of hangar size fabrication “printers.” The old fleet is still running and will for many years, but for the first time since before the launch of the Dawn, Elysrians can even entertain the idea of building a new ship. One that will be filled with technological wonders previously thought impossible but for the worlds and futures shown to us via fiction in the Archives. While it will still take many years to gather the appropriate materials, we finally can see the light over the horizon that was supposed to dawn ever so long ago.

Corrected Date; After Launch 111.8.17

[This entry is a bridge recording from exploration ship Sebrus as it attempts to chart a path through some of the deepest and most dense areas of the Infinity Nebula; transcript below]

Captain Algis: All right lads, entering the Cobalt Crests. Is the new shield tech still working?
Science Officer Dumal: As far as I can tell, yes. The output of the emitters seems to be able to keep the radiation at bay. Truly a marvel… and just from tiny shards of crystals.
Algis: I guess we push on then… into the depths.
Dumal: Scanning for formations.
Engineering Officer Rakin: If I had to guess, the constant lightning everywhere makes that hard and means we can’t stay long, even with the shields. Hrm. Anyone hear that hum?
Dumal: I hear nothing out of the ordinary, Rakin.
Algis: Just the thrusters in this mess.
Rakin: I suppose so, it’s gone now.
[there is little activity for a while other than normal maneuvering around, brief updates on the lack of crystal detection, and sounds of lightning striking the shields]
Rakin: Are you sure you can’t hear that? It’s getting so loud now.
Algis: There’s nothing, Rakin. Are you all right?
Dumal: Captain! That’s highly inappropriate.
Algis: I beg your pardon, Science Officer?
Rakin: What do you mean Dumal? He just asked if I was all right? And yeah, except for this damn noise…
Dumal: I… I thought he said something else. I’m sorry.
Algis: Are -you- all right?
Dumal: Actually… I have a bit of a headache. It’s getting worse.
Algis: Me as well, admittedly.
Rakin: I feel okay, but this void forsaken noise keeps getting louder… ugh. Yeah it’s giving me a headache too for sure.
Dumal: There’s no noise, Rakin.
Rakin: And how would you know, huh? I’m a dog, my ears are sensitive, lizard.
Algis: Woah now. All right, we’re leaving. This is starting to hurt my head, and something isn’t right. Dumal, are you sure those shields are working properly?
Dumal: We’ve lost some integrity to the lightning, but the diagnostic shows all clear…
Algis: Are you sure? Because I can see from here there’s an alert.
Dumal: I… what alert? What?
Algis: Look, right there in field analytics.
Dumal: I swear that wasn’t there a second ago… okay… the shield is being penetrated by exotic particles, not dissimilar to crystal emissions, but the type is new, and passing right through everything… And the intensity is increasing…
Rakin: Urgh… [there’s a sound of something heavy thumping into the floor]
Algis: Oh stars, his ears are bleeding… we need to get out of here right now. Emergency thrust.

Corrected Date; After Launch 112.3.24

[This entry is a copy of a journal that was kept by Stannis, authorized to be distributed to the public before his retirement in AL 145]

Dawn Date: 112.3.24

Every day brings a new surprise with these crystal application technologies. We realized the energy patterns output by the crimson variants could resolve at much higher precision within the vermillion variant, and the resolution of our desired outcome increased right down to the angstrom level. We can make precision modifications to individual atoms or molecules within a complex system, not just the bulky monoatomic masses of the original controller system. So too has that controller technology been shrunk down to handheld form, allowing even basic tools to have some form of fabricator function. These developments have given me pause recently. For example, I am hesitant to get the update from Organics Research. They were ecstatic about the idea of a reliable method to alter the entire genome of a being all at once, at any phase of the life cycle. Obviously, the potential for such a process is undefinable at the moment, for good or ill. We still don’t quite fully understand the full process of biochemical regulation or epigenetics, but I’m sure with the new toys we’ll be settling that soon too. The ability to amplify energy of any form via the crimson variant means that sensors of all kinds have had their sensitivities skyrocket, which is on top of the ability to create electronics . Even an optical sensor on the Dawn can now easily zoom onto individual hairs of a single sergal on the surface below. It’s frightening to imagine the heights of these technologies when used in ways in which they were not intended. I suppose that’s a lesser problem on the Dawn, which I have confidence in my team’s stringent ethical codes. In the future though, or out there in the void, who knows.

One project I am excited to reveal soon is that the same combination of crystals in particular configurations has basically solved fusion. We can just start up a reactor and use a very minor part of the output to force the fuel together using the crystals, which then also boost its output, or transfer the energy to other types for whatever use is needed. With this level of energy production, and the ability to sift deuterium and other aneutronic fuels from the worlds around us, I suspect we will never want for energy ever again. Perhaps though, with all these new advances in technology, maybe our needs will grow in tandem. They have already somewhat.

In particular, I predict the power generation of this system to overcome the weaknesses of our current shield technology and, hopefully, allow crews to be protected properly when they enter the center of the nebula. Every attempt so far, with all previous tests of shields and attempts to monitor the neural health of the crew, has failed. Whatever is creating the particles that seem to affect the chemical balances between neurons in the brain has yet gone undiscovered. We have also been unable to produce facsimiles of the particles in our labs. It seems a unique problem to a unique place. Years ago I would have called a solution impossible. These days, things are definitely more positive in outlook.

Corrected Date; After Launch 113.1.28

[This entry is a press release from TAIL regarding the undertaking of a massive, full refit of the Dawn, preparing it with new technologies and bringing it to modern spec]

To all crew and citizens of the Nascent Dawn, the time has finally come. After one hundred and thirteen years after this vessel appeared above Coress-1, and our ancestors and crewmates discovered that the planet was already settled by any definition, we believe we can finally retrofit the vessel that has borne the heart of our civilization for all that time. The hull has been patched, the beams have been rotting, the pipes and wires and crawlspaces and computers have worn down and broken. All this over and over. Today we announce that cycle shall end. With the advent of both fabrication and amplification crystals, the Heads of TAIL have decided that the Dawn shall be a remnant of Elysria no more. Instead, it shall shine once again in the light of a thousand suns as it carries us to our new future. Instead of hasty upgrades for quality of life or to shoddily shove in new systems as they get devised by Technology, we shall plan and look ahead and construct a new path.

This path will be arduous- various sections of the ship will by necessity be taken offline as its most critical systems and functions are replaced. Many of you may find yourself ousted from your home, ones that you may have had for a great period. When the process is complete, however, and you return from temporary accomodations you will find instead of crew quarters or shared showers, a true home. Cabins and private rooms. Flowing water instead of redundant recycling. Modern amenities currently restricted to common areas that are now privatized. We intend to transform this vessel from a lifeboat into a true starship. One that can fulfill its purpose, assigned and built, on a world long lost. To a new world we can build up.

So we humbly ask, from all of us at TAIL, that you please be patient as this ship undergoes the second greatest project our people ever undertake. We promise the outcome shall be worthy of your inconvenience. The first phase of this process is to completely refit our existing fleet as we increase production of new transports as well. We intend for every crew to be as safe as possible and as efficient as possible to collect every speck of fuel, chemical, mineral, and noble gas we need to achieve this dream. As always, we will achieve it together, as one people.

Corrected Date; After Launch 114.7.25

[This entry is an audio-only security recording from within Head of Administration Onyx’s quarters, talking to her personal aide, it was cleared for Archive following her passing in AL 181; transcript below]

Ciera: Ma’am? Should you be letting me see your password like that?
Onyx: Oh, come now, as if I wouldn’t trust you. You’ve been here at my side from the beginning. If you had wanted it before now, you’d have it. Among other things.
Ciera: I was under the impression that it was recommended to not just be a name of a family member.
Onyx: Perhaps not! But it’s easier for me to remember. Not the password, to make sure she knows how much I love her every day. Yes, to remember the password. There’s like fifteen of them now for every convoluted system. This one is just for the CAT anyway.
Ciera: Is she still… struggling?
[pause]
Onyx: Jade has to live with the knowledge of what my sister did forever. It is not something I would wish on anyone. Being her only family, it’s up to me to make sure she smiles every day!
Ciera: What about her father?
Onyx: Ah, yes… Will, I think, was his name. He went on to join the Pioneers.
Ciera: That is… unfortunate.
Onyx: I’m sure he’s still over there in De Solus, but they don’t particularly like talking anymore, even after we sent them a fabricator AND a fusion generator. They demanded one of the new Cerritos-class ships, but I’m not quite ready to give them one just yet. Nor do we have any to give, one won’t be ready for a few months. Did you know they’ve never sent a gift for my birthday?
Ciera: Why even send them crystal tech?
Onyx: They are still Elysrian Ciera. My duty is to each and every one of them, us. We.
Ciera: Do the sergals count too then?
Onyx: Certainly! Even the ones below at this point. I have an idea that I hope will bring some purpose and drive to my niece and solve the moon problem all together. Just needs some time in the fabricator.
Ciera: Would that be… SPIRE there on the screen?
Onyx: [gasp] I thought you weren’t looking. [laughs] I should probably change the password, but I can do that later.

Corrected Date; After Launch 115.3.11

[This entry is a recreation of a holographic video that was shown to newly awoken citizens in groups as a sort of orientation, the cryo-bays were being emptied as the upgrades to the Dawn and technology made the full population of the ship feasible; transcript below]

Welcome back, and to the future, Elysrian! My name is Onyx, and I am the current Head of Administration for TAIL, the ruling body over all Elysrian Temporary Space. TAIL is a democratic entity that arose after the original Global Union Commission was restructured. You might be wondering why you’re getting this video on a fancy hologram, and I am more than happy to tell you that a lot has changed since you were put in cryo-sleep! For the better, I mean. There’s a lot to learn too, so let’s get started! It has been 115 years since Launch Day, and as you can probably tell from the state of your awakening, the Dawn’s mission was NOT quite completed, but that’s okay because you feeling working gravity on the ship is really cool too! When the ship came into orbit around Coress-1 we immediately learned that there was already a developed culture on the planet. Big oops! The original Bridge crew decided we couldn’t land here. We’ve upheld that decision since; thus, your defrosting on the ship.

So, the first 105 years or thereabouts since then we’ve been mostly surviving as we could in the dark of space, scrounging a living out of the rocks and gasses of the rest of Coress and surrounding systems. Our equipment broke a lot, all ships had an alarming number of safety incidents, and we did our best to keep the sergals, our neighboring already settled culture, unaware of our trespass. It didn’t quite work out all the time, as you may see a few around the ship that elected to live with us, please do not be alarmed at their appearance. [the display briefly shows an average sergal] Most are just as creative, intelligent, and passionate as any other Elysrian. They want to protect their world too and would love to talk to you about how they’ve helped to achieve that.

In the meantime, in the past decade, we’ve discovered something truly extraordinary. A type of quantum crystal that can only be found in the Infinity Nebula that has variations that let us directly move atoms around, convert types of energy into one another, and together, do just about anything we can think of! The whole ship is being changed with this technology and its resulting leaps in the sciences to accommodate everyone, which is why we woke you up! You’re free to pursue any vocation or hobby that you wish, and are not bound by the Global Union contract that brought you here, isn’t that neat?

Once more, TAIL is the governing body that controls all Elysrian technology and operations present in Coress and nearby places (except for one spot, we can learn about the Pioneers later). If you wish to join TAIL, we are gladly accepting and appreciative of all help! But again, you can do anything you’d like up here, except go down to the planet. I know that’s ironic considering it was the one thing you told you’d be doing before you got put to sleep. But anyway, first thing is first! You can all talk to the waving orientation associate, who will help assign you to your own shipboard cabin, and give you several materials for further reading, including the up-to-date access to the Forever Archive, which has very detailed records about everything that’s gone on around here since Launch, and every piece of knowledge ever from Elysria. Happy reading!

Corrected Date; After Launch 116.10.29

[This entry is a recording between TAIL Heads Onyx, Stannis, Apoma, and Akton about the ways to guarantee Elysrian survival in the future; transcript below]

Stannis: Well, Apoma. You’re the logical expert here. Can it be done?
Apoma: Some of them will want to leave with the colony ships you have planned, some will want their own, but yes… some will stay and help your hare-brained scheme. Did I use that expression right?
Onyx: That’s wonderful to hear! We should get started right away.
Apoma: Hold your… horses? Yes, horses. I said they would help, not that it would be fast or easy to convince them. Personally, I can’t wait to get away from this rock.
Onyx: I wish I could share your enthusiasm! I will miss ou- er, your little gravity well.
Apoma: Hrmph. Maybe one day my ancestors will meet their ancestors and tell them what really happened.
Stannis: Ladies, the topic at hand?
Onyx: Oh, yes… we’ve already selected the best candidates for modification. Entirely embryos that had no families on the mission.
Stannis: And my team is absolutely certain that the procedure will be a success. The candidates will be completely adapted to the biosphere of Coress-1.
Apoma: Stupid name still. Yes, any of my people willing to stay behind would be happy to raise them. After enough generations of integration and drift, they can be “revealed” as a culture from across the southwest sea. Of course, without the ability to take any technology, it will be a rough life…
Akton: Can’t be any rougher than being on the Dawn twenty years ago.
Apoma: I guess not. I was having fun before gravity plating came around.
Stannis: So, we can all agree it can feasibly be done… now we must agree that it should be done.
Onyx: I think so! This way they can get to know us… before they meet us. Well, out there.
Apoma: Assuming they live that long, what with the moon and all.
Onyx: I told you I was working on a solution.
Apoma: [scoffs]
Akton: I’m sure whatever it is will work just fine, Apoma.
Apoma: I hope so. Otherwise we’re just wasting time.
Stannis: Against my usual vote, I do actually think this project will be good for the planet. More species is more robust overall. There will be more unique traits both physically and in the gene pools.
Onyx: [stifles a laugh]
Apoma: Please be serious for just one meeting…
Stannis: If things go well, we can preserve certain wisdoms without revealing the technological basis of those wisdoms. But it is a gamble. Both ethically and physically. At least we won’t be impacting the sergal culture this way. Yes?
Apoma: As little as it could be. We figured there had to be others like us somewhere. Finding them eventually would just be… normal.
Stannis: And in a stable environment that they are adapted to, our progeny can thrive.
Akton: Fine, I agree. If it is as natural as you can make it, then I suppose we can go ahead.
Onyx: I hope they have good lives down there. Elysrians and sergals. I suppose they would be.. Coressians?
Apoma: Abysmal name. We hadn’t really settled on one before I was brought up here, but I can tell you for sure it won’t be that.

Corrected Date; After Launch 117.5.21

[This entry is an announcement from the Heftus Platform and Industry Division about the newest initiative for Elysrian citizens]

The Industry Division is proud to announce that the waitlist for both personal yachts and colony exploration cruisers is available for all citizens of Elysria to queue for! Rapid changes in fabrication technology resulting from the inclusion of cerulean crystals has created true “replicator” level technology, allowing our fantastic foundries to convert material to energy and back again, and the limit of our imagination is truly only how much power we can get ahold of- and it turns out we can generate quite a bit!

The previous production queue for vessels was reaching a limit of several years, and now our combination replicator/printer shipyard can cut the total construction time of a yacht down to a couple weeks- the new colony cruisers into two months. The Administration Division has graciously offered assistance in managing the application system to allow every Elysrian, potential crew or passenger alike, a chance to forge their own future, no longer beholden to the survivalist realities of the past, but the infinite horizons of the future.

There are positions of all kinds to be taken on these vessels from bridge crews to chefs to pianists, and everyone is fully free, and encouraged, to dream of their future among the stars. All vessels will be linked to the Dawn and a central Elysrian subspace communication network. For the first time, the limits of light speed have been fully transcended. Our place is now among the stars, a dream set in motion over a century ago, though they could have never predicted this outcome.

For every Elysrian is a vessel of their choosing, to find their home, or to fill the wanderlust in their hearts with a view of the very universe. To join the queue for a vessel of your own, ensure you and your co-signers have passed deep space survival training and the appropriate station certification of your choice. If you are happy to have rosters composed of strangers to you, or to fill stations on other ships, please indicate so. If you would like to passenger on larger vessels seeking new homes, you may give preference to a ship and bridge crew or elect for random placement as well.

We want everyone to feel free. No more shall we be tied to just one place, but spread and feel the warmth of a million suns.

Corrected Date; After Launch 118.5.27

[This entry is a conversation between Akton and Apoma, recorded in a break room aboard the Heftus Platform; transcript below]

Akton: She’s sparkling now.
Apoma: What? The Dawn?
Akton: Yeah. All that work… it almost looks new. I think.
Apoma: I wouldn’t know.
Akton: I mean… I wouldn’t either, but I’d like to imagine this is how it looked when it was new. Even back then, with barely a clue how to survive in space, they put all their hopes onto her. I suppose it was that stress that degraded her so badly over time.
Apoma: You’re an engineer and you think fancy metaphors caused physical damage?
Akton: It’s just an expression, Apoma. [small laugh] But in a way, yes. It was never designed to last more than like, a couple of years. But they made it sit in place for a century. It was our will that kept it together, as much as any of its steel.
Apoma: And my crews.
Akton: Yeah. And your crews. Which have been instrumental in finishing the refit too.
Apoma: Yeah I know. I made sure they had the space and time to get the work done without Onyx getting her fingers all over things.
Akton: You really ought to be nicer to her.
Apoma: I really don’t. I signed up for this job to get the job done. She tends to be the number one reason why I get prevented from doing the job.
Akton: I suppose that’s fair… but at least all the jobs are pretty much done now.
[pause]
Apoma: It does make me sad.
Akton: Wait, you can feel anything that’s not annoyance?
Apoma: Silence. But yes… the stories. The spaces. The bays and the movement. It feels quiet now, after all this technology has let us spread out, made everything easy. I miss the feeling of having real meaning.
Akton: So you’re going to head out on one of the explorers soon then? There have been rumors.
Apoma: I am.
[pause]
Akton: I’ll miss you, you ornery fuzzball.
Apoma: Bah. I’ll miss you too, but it seems clear we all have different paths to fly. I’ll even miss her and her annoying laugh and that stoic mass of bear. In the end though- I’ll always remember my real home. Even if I can’t stand how they run things down there.

Corrected Date; After Launch 119.7.11

[This entry is another report from the Sunrise News, where the technological power of the Dawn was now so advanced that many concepts ceased to surprise its residents]

Sunrise News on 119.7.11 Crystal Consciousness

Following the creation of replicators from the blue tinted shards of crystals found in the heart of the Infinity Nebula, even further strides have been made on refining the artificial creation of our own crystal matrixes. The research group that originally devised the protections against the blue crystal’s mental effects- a terrible thing to have to be exposed to, if the bridge recordings are anything to go by- have been able to use that same research to identify pathways in the synthetic crystals that can store neural energy. Ten years ago this would have been a concept that was impossible to imagine, but nowadays- the idea of uploading our conscious thought onto the crystal matrixes is an intriguing one. Even as many groups of explorers and settlers spread out to the wide unknown, there is still a massive population of individuals on the Dawn.

Problems like shallow gene pools negatively affecting small populations are a thing of the past due to genetic correction, so any specific colony does not need a particularly large group to settle it. This has given pause to many still remaining on the Dawn, especially after its announcement that the retrofit was complete, and the Dawn was now able to jump anywhere that TAIL wanted. Explorers are still looking for the promised diamond in the rough, though, so there are groups of folks that are interested in this process. Technology has done proof of concept with an animal upload, where the animal generated for itself an illusion of its natural habitat within its mindscape. The animal was then successfully transferred back to its organic form. Synthetic crystals also contain the capabilities of every other crystal type, and allegedly, would be able to be controlled from within as neural energy.

The concept of living as energy- even energy that can manipulate its own environment and the state within the crystal- is an odd one. What would feelings be like in there? How would you perceive the outside world? The power of the crystals is certainly able to answer these questions, but not before someone actually tries it. There’s also the allure of ascending the limits of organic functions- you could think as fast as the best computer or elicit changes around you as much as you wanted with an appropriate generator attached to the system. For anyone reading, there is an open call for anyone that is interested in this existence- just the same as the Colony Program.

The sister vessels to the Dawn are now designed and designated, and their assigned members are starting preparations to go into the unknown. There’s also those who elected to return to cryogenics- until the Dawn reaches the home they were promised it would. TAIL honors the wishes of all.

Corrected Date; After Launch 120.6.1

[This entry is from the diary of Akton, cleared for release to the public Archive by Akton himself once TAIL was once again restructured into the Dawn’s Officer Commission in AL 128]

120.6.1

Our progress has been better than anything I could have dreamed or hoped for. And I’m usually the one promising too much. The green was already something like a miracle, but then the red and blue crystals, it’s like 1000 years of engineering knowledge all in a decade. And I’ve certainly put it to good use if the results are anything to go by. We had some cruisers planned initially for the colony efforts, but after the yellows started getting made, we realized we could do so much more; I look out my viewport now and see the superstructure of new entire, what, carriers? They rival the Dawn in size but surpass it in every way with capabilities and comfort. Our people can spread wherever they want however they want. We live longer than ever too. Elysria will carry on in so many ways.

If not for the crystals, I shudder to think where we would still be. Another two decades of stagnation, of failing expectations, of needing more than what we could actually do. I know my changes to the platform and the Industry division helped. I know I did well. But I also know now it probably would not have been enough for just that. When I was younger, I thought I could just walk in and solve all of Industry’s problems with a smile and some good words. And actually, I think I did though. Now that we’ve seen how much movement and energy everyone could have when there was a goal to reach, it’s clear there was a certain degree of inertia in everything. Maybe the people on the Dawn just needed a push all along.

I’m glad we found a push, but even as much work as I did, I know I didn’t do it alone. Onyx in particular was so irrepressible in her position that it was just infectious. People wanted to help her help everyone. Stannis was so rigorous with his research and controls that we never had to worry about runaway progress, and Apoma. Oh Apoma. She was hard to talk to, and usually rude when she was, but I admired the work ethic, and how creative she was in performing that work ethic. She had fun things to say when she was rude. She’s already gone, and the Logistics Division just kind of operates without a Head right now. Grav-lev exists and you can just de-energize materials to be stored exactly in the state they got in, so it’s just autopilot. Hah, I made a pun for myself. I wonder if I can track her down one day.

Corrected Date; After Launch 122.3.14

[This entry is from a report by Administration Division detailing some of the discoveries by the coordinated exploration efforts of TAIL]

That concludes the discoveries in the alpha sector for the galactic southwest from our position. One last thing of note is a brief reconnaissance back at Azal- its radius has consumed Elysria. Our new sensors and scanners predict a nova in another 108 years.

Beta sector to the galactic northwest has had these reports from the extended scouting missions:

Baxton has found a binary system with a neutron star that has an orbiting K-class star. This specific duality has not been detected before, and they’re holding position to take more detailed readings. They will return to their path towards the Gargantua black hole when they’re confident they’ve discovered all they can.

Nines made a standard survey of a pulsar with a 1.3 second period, and it has been added to the navigation update slated for the end of the week. They moved on to a nearby quaternary system to examine the gravimetrics and to test the output of a Tear unit, containing approximately 13 neuronic crew.

Zelst was priority tasked to examine a protoplanetary disk for several weeks to establish a model of planet formation and the future of that young system. They took station a few days ago and report things are going well. A nearby rogue gas giant is being drawn in as well.

Eaite performed a secondary resupply mission to provide fusion fuel for the struggling De Solus facility, though as per our recent communications with the Pioneers, they agree to move on from this region and leave Coress-1 be to its future in exchange for a colony carrier of their own. Industry has replied they are happy to provide one. The vessel moved on to return to a standard patrol of the Infinity Nebula, monitoring for any changes in the region.

That concludes the discoveries in the beta sector for the galactic northwest from our position.

Delta sector to the galactic northeast has had little progress since last week:

Corrected Date; After Launch 125.9.18

[This entry is copy of a letter from a settler on board the Heleus, a colony carrier launching to the unknowns of the galactic north from Coress-1, destination not yet verified by the exploration fleet]

My Dearest Bessel,

Forgive me my sentimentalism, even though I know the subspace network would let us speak if ever you desired. I felt it important to leave you something physical, tangible, something to see around you and be reminded that I think of you, if you want such a reminder. I do not blame you for your dedication to your duties aboard the Dawn, nor those you found fairer company, even as I chose this path to grow the distance between us. The Heleus is leaving the Dawn behind the same day I am writing this letter. It will serve as my last presence on board that ship, and probably, your life. It is clear to me that I should not be casting shadows upon it.

Our time together had been nothing short of extraordinary for me, even through the bumps and crashes we’ve had. All my missteps- for I do not fault you for yours- have culminated in this separation. I reveled being in the same room, my ears always perked at the sudden sound of your voice, my heart jumped at every affirmation and sank with every miscommunication, my very being was attuned to your presence. Before it crumbled away. Before those ever-present circumstances of our lives drifted it apart. I chose a path of my making and asked you to reach up to it, instead of making sure I had built you a ladder. So in leaving behind the comfort of the Dawn, I understand why our time became strained and stretched.

My focus on this colonization effort was anathema to your exultations of being in space. I sought foundations and you sought freedom. I sought stability and you sought flexibility. I sought to have things with you that would have diminished your light, for you exist above them. So, I was always doomed to fail. Forevermore will I remember your laughs, even if I am not around to hear them. Forevermore shall I remember the life in your eyes, the twitches of your tail, the magnitude of your soul as it shone bright in darkness. For all these things there is a place in my heart that will never forget them. I shall never forget you.

Your life touches so many positively, so many with laughter and joy, and I so dearly wished to be the closest to your heart. But in doing so, I would quiet that which makes the universe a better place by casting others into the dark.

So it is farewell, spectacular, beautiful, wonderful, shining, kitten.

May the stars ever watch over you, even when I cannot.

Corrected Date; After Launch 127.1.1

[This entry is the last official publication of Sunrise News]

Sunrise News on 127.1.1
Happy New Year, and New Horizons

TAIL has finally announced its long rumored intention to begin disbanding all the official government structure that ties the Elysrian collective to the outdated and redundant command of the Nascent Dawn. All remaining on-board the ship are dedicated to finishing the Dawn’s original mission and staying with the vessel until its fitting end as the base of a future colony. Where that colony will be is as yet unknown, as are the destinations of all of her sister vessels that have already launched. The Platforms have been recycled back down into their original landing configurations and returned to the vessel for its initial jump later today. We will follow a path to the galactic south, looking for a habitable world and keeping up with the updates of our three sister ships.

With this announcement is the declaration that all ship crews still flying the TAIL banner may now take independent action to whatever future they deem appropriate. If you would still like to scout for the colony ships, all would welcome the assistance; but you are now able to explore wherever and however you would like to. If you choose to find your own path in the stars ahead, and forge your own destiny, then we send you with our hopes and a pledge of support to always be a safe harbor when needed. The colony carriers have their own shuttles and skiffs that can take care of all their material needs, so there is no need to worry about friends, family, and the rest of our people.

The planet that has unwittingly borne us through our stressful history shall not be fully abandoned. As a footnote entry in the announcement today, Head of Administration Onyx gave her emphatic description of a plan to right the wrong of our initial stay here and reverse the decay of Coress-1a’s orbit. The Spatial Preservation via Induced Reversal of Energetics project is being undertaken by a crew hundreds strong who will remain on Coress-1, led by Onyx’s own niece, Jade. We look forward to their return to the collective when their task is complete. They will have a vessel parked on Coress-1 to remain in contact and to leave the world to its devices once their mission is accomplished.

To them and to all receiving this final issue of Sunrise News, may your horizons never dim again.