Tag: science fiction

LOG_035_MONOLITHS

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The mysterious structures were an old source of gossip for Torish and his friends: seven hulking anvil-shaped blocks of concrete, featureless except for their numbers, the buildings loomed over the magrail line that cut through the heart of the city.

During fits of boredom, they’d play a game to see who could invent the most outlandish story about the people who used them; sometimes, they would sit and watch from the street over for people who went near, or even dare each other to see who could get the closest to the buildings. Torish was the proud record holder of that one–he’d gone all the way to touch the facade of Number 5. Disappointingly–or thankfully–nothing had happened.

Torish had never seen anyone go in or out of any of the buildings, and if there were any cameras or windows, they were cleverly hidden or disguised enough to be unrecognizable. Sojarav had claimed that his father’s colleague’s sister had seen one person enter once, but Sojarav was also the most inscrutable of their little group and often sneaky when you least expected it, so who knew if it had really happened.

LOG_034_LISTENING_POST

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Above: the above-ground operations and communications branch of one of the mining facilities located on the asteroids orbiting HKC 2901 d. Operations are segmented into three major bays; twin prismatic structures jut out of a sleek, flat spine, each overseeing their side, with the center having its own dedicated hub. The heart of the facility lays beneath the surface, a vast sprawling network of mechanical arteries and veins pumping out raw ores of precious metals.

LOG_033_SOMBRE_DIMANCHE

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The space station Sombre dimanche drifts into orbit around HKC 2901, closing in on a far trajectory from deep space. Here, it will linger, a vast geometry visible to any dirtside observers even in broad daylight, comparable in size to the biggest moons in the system at its widest, a silent and shimmering beast mantled upon the horizon. To the station, this is but a brief stop on its endless journey; in two months, it will set upon its plodding trek again, outbound into the dark to parts unknown.

– excerpt from records collected on HKC 2901 d circa E.S. 2765, unknown author

Sombre dimanche was the first, and last, of a line of DSE superstations. Designed and built by several HIC member nations, it was part of an ambitious project in pursuit of interstellar exploration and research. Equipped with four Horizon drives, a modular design, and autonomous self-repair and -construction systems, it was meant to be a mostly self-sufficient station destined for long independent expeditions, crewed by over ten thousand personnel selected from varying backgrounds. The decline of the HIC, delays caused by multiple problems during its troubled development, and rising tensions between the various powers of the time brought an end to the program not long after Sombre dimanche‘s commissioning.

Over time, design oversights and software quirks enabled its robust autonomous systems to continue building upon the original structure long past its intended specifications, sometimes even independently rerouting the station for self-resupply. Communications with its human crew became sporadic and entirely ceased two decades into its expedition, and the more supernaturally-inclined even claim that all the original humans had slowly become supplanted by the ship itself. The sprawling structure grew so large that many of its oldest partitions are functionally abandoned: at the heart of the station, one can travel for miles without seeing another living being—with nothing for company except the arcing bones of a rusting skeleton and the echo of one’s own breath in the dark depths.

LOG_032_CITY_OF_MASKS

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The second moon of HKC 2901 d is a rainy and rocky one, dreary in climate but abundant in ores and other natural resources. The locals tend to keep to themselves—many have never stepped foot off the moon, let alone traveled to intra-system planets—and they are exceedingly polite but distant toward strangers. Theirs is predominantly a blue-collar community: most are employed in the processes of extracting, refining, and exporting the raw materials of the moon.

Despite this, they hold close-knit ties within their communities. Children, a rare sight, are safeguarded by every member regardless of blood relations. When one falls ill, others shoulder a share of the work and ensure that they do not go cold or hungry. The heart of each town lives in the hearth, where food is shared in communal meals when the day’s work is done.

The strength of their collective identity might also be owed in part to one unique aspect: due to high concentrations of atmospheric ammonia, every human must wear a breathing apparatus when outside of hermetically-sealed facilities. Over the generations, such apparatus have developed meaning in some cultures as both a symbol of practical protection and spiritual kinship. Some are passed down in families, marked by a lineage of workers. To wear their mask is to also belong to the collective, one of an anonymous whole. Among more religious sects, they have also acquired a meaning of modesty, and believers rarely take their masks off in the presence of others. Tourists tend to exaggerate this meaning to wild misinterpretations; planet-hoppers are especially guilty of this, envisioning romanticized lives of simple labor in exotic small towns. The more gauche souvenir shops found on HKC 2901 d tout overly-decorated and often non-functional masks, advertising sacred or magical effects.

– from System HKC 2901: A Primer, First Edition

LOG_031_SEAGLIDERS

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A pair of Kaua Merchant Navy Cormorant-class seagliders on a regular reconnaissance patrol, seen skimming over the waters of HKC 2901 c.

Cormorant-class seagliders are a type of medium-sized aircraft meant for fast powered flight over medium- to long-distances. They are often used as escort and reconnaissance vehicles by the Kaua Merchant Navy on the waterworld of HKC 2901 c. They have both single- and twin-seat variants, feature two pylons per wing, and a modest internal bay on its underside that can be outfitted with various equipment suites or light armaments.

LOG_030_HORNED_CRAWLERS

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ARTICLE ARCHIVED FROM [ ??? ]

CATEGORY [ XENOBIOLOGY ]

ID [ K1B 12.02 ]

SHORT DESC [ SPECIES 0012 ]


NOTES

[ Horned crawlers are members of the Kheprian crawler family, small armored creatures native to Khepri-1b. They are omnivorous, with their diet ranging from small larvae and eggs that they dig out of the soil to tubers of the deep-rooted brush in the darkgrass plains of the planet's terminator zone. ]