When it comes to expanding influence on Kawako Six, you could try to take it over from the Tagal I suppose and go to war with them over the territory as the most direct approach. Also maybe expand Diadome’s existing seasonal circuit and negotiate to host a big one at Kawako Six but they don’t have as much space or infrastructure for an arena a the scale of Diadome so there would be a lot of overpaying for space and holding that space. I mention this even though it is economic insanity because Diadome is the main thing we do in the galactic north that Reachers like us for. Judging by their imports, they do like to collect relics and exotic goods. Another opportunity would be setting up mass importing of such things to endear ourselves to the local powers. Given how far in the south they currently lurk, Hive World stuff might fit the bill. It could be worth having Wonaya check around on that since everything she’s wearing is an exotic hive world trophy. However, it does depend on your goals of expanding influence. Short of introducing a new threat that requires a larger alliance among the Reach I don’t foresee Kawako Six agreeing to ever join as a member state or even create a formal alliance since they have not done that even with Utewa who is a nearby neighbor and main trading route for them.

The vessian population of Diadem is about sixty thousand, but they are mostly here to work on the farms and the associated towns spread throughout the farming projects. They are being slightly displaced ever since we got Alnae on board who have been producing golems to work the farms as is a tradition of theirs. Though most of those golem run farms are currently on Enohas with only some minor setups on Diadem from some enterprising individuals at the moment. The vessians tend to live among each other and this is largely for the safety of others. We might be able to recruit a handful to make a dedicated squad but it is unlikely we could build a platoon out of them, since they’re just here for the farms and ever since the war on Thenica they are a little wary of what kind of trouble our military tends to get into. One obstacle to consider on indoctrinating them to Federation ideals is that they share a particular problem with endearing ourselves to dragons. Vessians thrive on the anarchy of the reach because they are one of the strongest species in it, so by default they win a lot of ‘might makes right’ arguments. As an easy parallel, in the anarchy of the Reach they are born rich by default. In the Federation they’re just farmers or grunt soldiers. So that is one angle to consider. Another is that instilling any pride in their place within the Federation should definitely target the second generation immigrants who have only ever really known being apart of the Federation. Though they have little to be proud about since they grew up in the rural areas of the surface plates. Given their cultural tradition for trophies, they do tend to like feats of accomplishment if the Federation had more war victories they could feel like they contributed to though that is a very long term type of idea unless they started joining the military directly. Most of the vessians who could be described as warriors tend to still be in the Reach rather than working farms for the Federation which explains the low rate of recruitment. Though the second generation might be more inclined to enlist once they’re a bit older.

The strike into the second section is underway, Siora and Walters have taken their forces to see how much damage they can get done. Though this will involve going deeper into the section than the last operation to find the factories. As usual, we tend to lose contact with the deep expeditions, so the reports are pending Siora’s return.

Vasia reports that the Rahlken pirates layered immortality methods mean that actually killing one requires separating them from all other things that can support a psyche, killing them with a necrocarnate, and incinerating their corpse for good measure. They can jump from their body if you only use necrocarnum and they can reform their essentia if you only trap their psyche when killing them. Also the regeneration issue is still notable even if resolved by fire rather than anything more complicated. Basically they have to be isolated and killed by a necrocarnate.

She also is not much of a pandem expert, that is Ankathi’s domain and so Vasia can offer to almost kill Kaylen in twenty different ways but can’t to the specific one we know works, however if you want to try it she’s down to nearly murder Kaylen a few times to see if any have any impact. At the very least she could take Kaylen to the labs for experimentation to look for any available methods that don’t involve a highly specific spell.

Vasia doesn’t have any particular information regarding the mercenaries that Haleh fought aboard Rahlken’s ship. She has never seen them before and Aryn doesn’t have anything in the database. The lack of databases throughout the Reach hasn’t helped with that matter. Though she does agree that they will likely be relevant at some point just due to the fact that their team would have been able to challenge almost any other deployment from the Federation. They were just unfortunate to run into Haleh and Vasia on their first trip. Though Haleh didn’t manage to kill them, Rahlken showed up before she could.

The starless planet in the middle of nowhere likely formed because of the Warrens exit that or fell out of the Warrens in some way. Initial analysis of the life forms indicate they have a heavily mana based anatomy similar to arcurans, dragons, vessians, and those glowy people in the galactic north. Which makes them quite reliant on somewhat alternative energy sources, that likely came from the Warrens exit near them.

Winter is on her way to Sugnam, and is grouchy that she’s not on her way back to Diadem to get into some trouble with finding solutions to Lancaster’s tube issue. Koharrel writes back that the Sugnam don’t really have galactic politics and still use the system of ‘the king is in charge of everything’. The democratically elected king is still sort of operating that way. Before we go delivering dramatic ultimatums on them she feels its worth pointing out that they don’t really know how things work and for the last century or so they’ve only known pirate politics. Their temporary membership program idea is mostly because they are wary of turning from one group of aliens exploiting them to another group of aliens exploiting them while potentially dealing with a third group like the demons. They also have no idea what the Federation is really like or how its ideals impact their world. Koharrel is pretty sure if you put it as ‘join or we leave’ then the current republic will join but that will also probably start additional problems due to some confusing elements. What they’re really trying to do is feel things out before jumping headfirst into some long term agreement they don’t understand, albeit while also exploiting the agreement to get the Tungsten Teeth to practically conquer the planet for them. Koharrel is also pretty sure that if you force them to hurry it up we’ll actually create the exact same issue where other powerbases on the planet will have to turn to external forces for help and the demons are right there already.

As for setting up Federation assets on Elasyn, this is one of those ‘it looks easy but will probably be convoluted’ situations. Elasyn is really just a bunch of squatters and we could build our own colony there. A key detail is that every populated area is generally run by a smaller ‘government’ that handles the local utilities in particular. So unlike a traditional location, setting up even a single building requires the direct approval and usually joining of these gangs to make use of those facilities. There however isn’t anything preventing us from building our own settlement, consider it like establishing a colony on an alien world it just happens to be full of geometric concrete shapes instead of trees and grass. Liberty City in particular is a little easier on one front because its infrastructure network is far larger and has more empty buildings people can easily move in and out of with plumbing and the like. On the other hand, setting up in Liberty requires a lot more security. We’d have to figure out how large of an armed force we can send to protect a territory without drawing much more serious levels of attention but not so little that we get run over, form alliances with the other Reach agencies who run the city, and probably deal with sixteen consecutive headaches. I would say that going to set up at Elasyn, whether throughout the rest of the planet or the big city itself, means talking to some other people to get permission and alliances to do so. Grand Chief Amasis, Chancellor Habrah, Big Erud, and Gasaba are all notable powers with influence in Liberty that might be worth talking it over with.

As for the chamber we suspect Sarrai to be in, Vasia says the condition of ‘safely’ means automatically no. Six personnel are already suspected to be dead for trying to enter the unit. She can try just chucking it in there with the food though.

Vynnoth said she’s looking through the dragon road plan and has been nudging some dragons she knows with it. Though it is slow going, if nothing else dragons like to procrastinate major decisions. She is also waiting for Haleh to come back since she has additional plans that will require Haleh to sit still for five minutes. Which is obviously a work in progress.

I suppose this mentality explains why Diadome is so grandiose. I always wondered why it seemed to have unlimited funding just for people to punch each other in front of spectators.

As for Valjala and the impacts of the Astral Aberration feeding on it, the planar cloud is being eaten which effects its internal size. Basically at the very edge of the universe, Valjala is contracting and anything that falls out of it just disappears. You can think of it as if the maximum capacity for mana in the plane is being lowered and that’s why it is affecting things like the crystals and your own abilities. It had a bit of a headstart given that it was created with a burst of expansion so it will take some time to be completely consumed by this thing but your abilities and control over the plane are unable to affect it since it exists in the Astral Wilds. Hisashi reports that the only way to observe it in any way would be from the Astral Wilds rather than in Valjala. From the inside of any plane this creature is unobservable, though observing it clearly came with some side effects last time. While normally the spell you and the other pantheon members use to sustain any permanence in the Astral should be fine, this thing can use the properties of the astral, or lack thereof, against you like a weapon. Which broke the usual shield spell very quickly. So, approach with caution.

Yasrena and Jhanlyth already gave us a report on their end of the experience in the last summary so they don’t have much new to add. Yasrena is the reason we know where Astral One went after the event.

Hisashi has continued his work investigating Astral One, though this caused another incident. Four researchers are gone, one got turned into an alien species we’ve not really seen before, and another one is now a statue made out of several different materials. If anything resembling a pattern can be discerned, it’s that the act of trying to observe Astral One triggers these. Pointing his radar deliberately away from it didn’t produce the same scale of uncontrolled planar whackiness. This most recent attempt at observation has revealed some further information despite the costs of the attempt though. Astral One is basically on par with a planar entity but exists in an ecosystem where rather than controlling a plane it feeds on it. Also initial projections for the rate of Valjala’s decay have been recalculated, observing Astral One accelerated it. The speed actually doubled once it was observed again. Hisashi currently theorizes that every time you look at it, the speed at which Valjala is being eaten will double every time. So now we’re down from millions of years to 2 million range.

Astral One is also specifically feeding on some unknown resource that has to do with permanence. Which is why Hisashi sometimes disappears from reality every now and then. The longer it feeds on Valajala the longer its own lifespan is likely extending, which other astral creatures have just seconds of normally. Hisashi also reports this latest incident and scanning attempts reveal that another one is not that far away.

The idea of keeping this from Ankathi, while I cannot confirm this as I am avoiding the First Temple – I’m pretty sure she knows. If she was able to keep track of you traveling several times the speed of light through the Astral and explain what happened after you left Zero behind it stands to reason she has a much more powerful ability to sense things happening within the Astral. Not sure if that is limited to what she is focused on or not, as she is currently bolstering her army which has taken up most of her attention. Just pointing out that that based on precedent, it is likely she knows already.

Irae reports the continual military conquest of the apocalyptic world might need knights soon. Ship sensors indicate an incoming fleet, though the precise details of who it is remains impossible to determine since the Reach lacks patterns to their ship technologies. It is likely the locals contacted someone to come by since they themselves can’t deal with Irae but the violent conflict still continues.

Lailah, who is the most stable person to extract a report from, has sent back a bunch of individual insects for the labs to play with. Weirdly the most effective pest control we’ve had are solian spiders. Granted, we don’t have that many samples of things that wouldn’t be dangerous to the colonists from anywhere else. The incarnum moths got eaten themselves instead. We tried an anteater but it got indigestion and stopped wanting to eat the alien bugs. Lailah suggested we find something that is on fire. The hive world is mostly green and lush so hopefully a forest fire doesn’t start too easily, and alien bugs definitely struggle with Otto setting them on fire. Granted Otto uses hellfire and he did start a forest fire.

Inya submitted another knight to infection by the psionic parasite, this time with more available forms of entertainment. The process we had seen before has been repeating.

Eerihild reports having reached Hephal reports in that the vessian invasion is fairly brutal on the natives. It has been a long time since the Vessians took any sort of action like this and that means they sent some of their best to this invasion. It actually turns out Hephal was offered to join the vessian territory politely at first. She doesn’t know the exact details but Eerihild gets the impression that Hephal refused in a less polite fashion. So now they’re being violently dismantled. She’s spotted some early colonization work that corroborates with Wonaya’s earlier theories due to the expanse of land cleared for what looks like will become a farming project. Though with a lot more technology than the Vessians typically would have. They’re trading with someone for that stuff and Eerihild sent recordings back for analysis but she certainly doesn’t know how to recognize where it might be from. Aryn reports that the tech isn’t salvaged scrap, which means a major power is involved. Likely to ingratiate themselves with the Vessians in some way as well as help ensure that they return to being one of the Reach super powers. Eerihild only has scout reports for now though and hasn’t talked to any of the invaders to avoid conflict and just has what she has seen herself or heard from the natives. Though she does confirm they are indeed being mass barbecued since vessians will eat anything they can get their hands on.

Diadem Festival, along with Diadome and the definite highlight of the show, the tech expo! is around the corner. Adrienne’s made it back to prep for all that jazz. Though she also brings further information about what is going on the galactic north now that we’re not relying on practically mailboxes to communicate with her.

As it turns out, the Nakka News report was correct, the entire galactic region was cleaned out of metal by the exerlus conflict. Though the expeditions from Reachers looking for some ‘investment opportunities’ have made that statement no longer an absolute. Some ships here and there and colony setups. The border stations that Adrienne was helping to set back up should help control any spread of the Hive worlds since the Zhulkites do have a few thousand years of experience of doing so. Though no guarantee that something hasn’t slipped past while the stations were gone, and we do know the line of containment has moved back by a couple of stars in all cases since they can’t really guarantee the one’s closest have gone unaffected. Though the hive worlds spread is one of those ‘thousands of years’ types of galactic processes so we might be dead long before we see the results of all this. With the exception of the deliberate importation some of those in the north have taken to.

Which is one of the new developments, along with the entrepreneurial Reachers, there are similar happenings involving the civilizations who live in the Hive Worlds. Some were even invited or paid for the service of beginning some aggressive and chaotic terraforming projects. Due to the destruction of metallic resources by the exerlus, many northern civilizations are pretty much back to sticks and rocks. Short of being exploited by Reachers, some see a better opportunity in transforming their world to the organic ‘technologies’ of the hive species. They do have bioships out there after all. Notably this is all happening on a rather vast scale, so picking through everything is a bit of a mess and Adrienne was only able to visit a few places. Obviously communications are down out there so she couldn’t exactly call anyone for an update without visiting herself. It is likely we can expect to see a very oddly shaped expansion of both the Hive Worlds and the Reach as it consumes the leftovers bit by bit.

New age said they can try to include it in future deliveries but those are currently few and far between. Vasia is currently away to check on this whole Rahlken business and Si-Yeon is at the Nekhul stations so the unit is currently not being messed with too much.

The Elasyn project sort of provides a few options of approach. Establishing our own presence on the planet as a sort of colony so we can manage our own utilities, or trying to ingratiate ourselves with one of the local gangs and see if they let us set up shop in their territory. If we’re avoiding Liberty than we might be able to scurry about under the noses of the powers that be on Elasyn, though I think our association with the Federation will draw their attention.

Vanessa reports the continuing exploration of the planet continues to find more pockets of people living off on their own in various ways. However she is also figuring out why Liberty is so prominent. Aside from having the most economic activity, it is also where specific things can be acquired that are rare throughout the rest of the Reach. An example the Federation is familiar with would be Selona’s brand of arms, this city is the only reliable place to find them. The Silver Fleet also sells a lot of their manufactured goods here, any excess they manufacture and don’t sell off on their nomadic travels gets sent to their holdings here on Elasyn. There is also a lot of important networking to be done by making friends in the city that can have connections throughout the rest of the Reach and as a result there are strange groups that live here and train people to become galactic agents for various reasons or another. At one point she found out there is a cult of incarnites who undergo an almost religious style of training here. The Reach Broadcast Network information trade business also has its main office here. 

Deniau is still working on the memory affecting drugs though progress is slow and so far the best he’s got leaves people in a coma which is…I guess one way to make them forget something. The Nekhul observation project still has seen no sign of Souris and has kept mapping potential trajectories and scouts along the way haven’t found any new signs of him.

Nekhul observations report that they’ve been able to map out the planet for the most part, at least the areas around the cities. In conjunction with the Ika at Diadem they’ve pinned down how the cities were once laid out and can compare it to current observations to figure out what should be where. Though the previous observation that only a few structures remain operable or are just completely missing still stands, the researchers were just throwing stuff at the wall on that one I think. Further observation of the things living down there reports what is likely to be cooperative behavior among them. Along with the fact that they never really attacked each other at the shipwrecks, we also are seeing small groups of them in certain locations. With consideration to the fact that they wear metallic armor and also attack any foreign metals vigorously, it does stand to reason they are at least somewhat intelligent. They display the ability to cooperate, as well as not eat each other, but also the restraint to not attack the planetary shield generator or its associated power stations. Granted, not sure how much that helps either. It is unlikely diplomacy works since that is likely the first thing the original expedition would have tried.

Sunliao and Allison have headed to Sugnam to look around. Though we already know that their Tungsten Teeth contracts are being paid for by VSEC. Though we are able to find some more nuanced information hidden away on the planet’s ongoing political affairs. Part of which being there’s another element here largely unaccounted for. There are members of Utewa hiding among the Revenants, though we’re not sure what they’re doing here exactly. Perhaps just keeping an eye on things. It is also likely that the current governments are stalling with VSEC’s aggressive recruitment offers due to figuring out the Tungsten Teeth are just mercenaries. Which they could also pay for with the proper economic establishment. The currently elected democratic king of Sugnam Republic hasn’t felt the full effects of conquering half the planet yet but slowly the political influences of other interests lobbying him are getting into position. Certain groups have an interest in specifically not signing a deal with the Federation while others are trying to avoid the demons. All are pitching their ideas all at once at a time when they are still figuring out how interstellar politics even work.

So basically you have one interest group not wanting to join the federation and instead use their fuel deposits around the planet to buy off the Tungsten Teeth themselves, though that requires significant infrastructure and investment for a people that don’t have a lot of capital to work with. Which is why some teams are being sent to the old slaver mines to try and reappropriate the mining technology and industrial setups. You have another group who says they should just join the Federation and mooch as much investment as they can in order to avoid signing anything with the demons. As it is likely that the other hemisphere has more money than the newly formed Sugnam Republic without VSEC recklessly spending on the Teeth. Which would result in a dramatic shift of power if that fact came up in a bidding war. Utewa are here but no one knows what their goals are or if they’re just observing. The Revenants are also here keeping an eye on things and trying to prevent corrupt leaders from taking power in this tumultuous time, they are liable to try and assassinate the current king at this rate actually.

The strike team has deployed towards the Demon Kingdom to prepare for an assault on necromancer demon wizard guy. Some recon work has to be done atop of what Winter already reported to figure out our best way of going about this, as well as a bit of traveling.

When it comes to Jaal’Darya’s leadership, well we know its run by Eliza Val’Jaal’Darya, or pierce if you prefer. The abomination of shapeshifting magic gone way too far who terrifies basically everyone except the Hassani council. Who is herself one of those who report to Yasrena and probably knows more about the Federation than we can really figure out due to her friendship with Vasia as mutual mad scientist buddies. Though how much she knows that is actually useful is hard to say. The extended Jaal’Darya family are being slowly replaced by Eliza’s weird creations. Internally their house has the original Jaal’Darya bloodline trying to maintain their safety and relevance within the house politics but Eliza has the stronger position and she is in turn trying to replace the old family bit by bit with more members who are perhaps a little more loyal to her. Also as we learned from our last attempt, Jaal’Darya is very well defended by the Hassani since they are aware of the importance of the house for larger strategic concerns. The now unified Hassani Empire has an easier time just stationing a military base near the Jaal’Darya to guard them so if anything security has gotten tighter over the last two years. Atop of that we know that Eliza herself is a big problem to deal with if you do manage to get in there.

The team helping Renjala on apocalypse world found that the locals are contacting external presences in the Reach who we found on sensors approaching. We filled Irae and Renjala in about that as well. While currently we are managing to undermine the resistance movement, we’re fairly certain a figure known as Jihul is the one contacting the outside forces though that particular person is somewhat of a mysterious figure operating from the background. Likely the planet’s old equivalent of yourself before Haleh showed up.

Stories of Lore 67

Viper has been moved to the hyperlane route to begin patrolling it. Vynnoth thinks offering the stations to the dragons is a pretty solid idea once she can find more who would be interested and once people start moving in. Though she’s not keen on naming it after herself since that might cause unnecessary friction with the other dragons. Telling a dragon to move into a station already named after another dragon may or may not affect their interest but it’s more likely to dissuade than persuade in this instance. Also she isn’t sure she wants to make herself into an obvious target.

The process of filling the stations thus far has been peculiar. The new route consists of twelve total stations with four of them being particularly focused on. They are all mostly empty and this has attracted the interest of people who need a lot of warehouse space more than anything else. So the pirates who previously patrolled this route are suspected to be the current residents, which is both populating the stations but also making them sort of hostile to other potential visitors. Granted most stations are a little hostile by default within the Reach network.

Vynnoth has the department responsible for all this keeping things running but not appointing a full time civil leader of the stations. Not hard given there isn’t much to manage yet anyways, though she intends to let them build up a bit before using it to attract any dragons since they are less keen for projections than most solian investors.

Haleh and Vasia went off to go get kidnapped by Rahlken in an attempt to kidnap some of the pirates. Which they were almost successful in, though an unknown group intervened. Vasia did manage to capture one in the end after the other four were destroyed by the uninvited group’s intervention. They’re still in the process of transporting to Vasia’s labs.

Wonaya went back to Vess as requested. She reports that they are somewhat adamant on securing their own resource production instead of relying on importing from others. Especially with the growing trend of the Federation’s expansion. They’ve rejected either assistance or to allow the Federation to make contact with the Hephal.

While it wasn’t directly stated, Wonaya has some theoretical insight into the matter. Prior to the near destruction of their homeworld, vessians were one of the super powers of the Reach. They still kind of are and people will still respect Grand Chief Amasis as if nothing changed but over time if they can’t rebuild their position then someone is going to notice. Vittles is very likely the actual reason they’re doing this. After their homeworld was set on fire, they scattered throughout the Reach to find food as necessary. Then Vittles happened and attracted thousands to Diadem and now they’ve spent enough time to create a new generation on Diadem. There are more vessians in the Reach who have become somewhat independent than there are still within the tribes. Wonaya thinks they’re doing this specifically to keep more of the population they still have and maybe bring back some of the nomadic ones to rebuild. While they would likely be able to rally vessians across the Reach to return home and defend it if they were attacked, the currently available population actually within the territory wouldn’t be enough to defend itself from any major offensive.

Arlo reports that the Diadome agency has been investing into further developing local scenes financial stability for the fighters rather than the promoters. Floor space at Kawako Six has been purchased as requested. The Tagal don’t seem to mind any. Which normally I shouldn’t have to point out was in the report but lately with the outreach programs that seems kind of out of the ordinary.

The scouts report back on the starless planet in the middle of open space. It could be that this world isn’t one of the ones we would consider ‘golden’ since it developed under extremely different circumstances. That being the lack of sunlight. It is still a very developed world in terms of biodiversity and atmosphere, but even a warrens exit can only do so much if there is no star. Whether this has implications towards the idea of the shared origin theory or not is still up for debate. Other probing indicates that the planet’s crystal structures are basically just impure regular formations. Not quite like the strange properties of the Koura crystals.

As for destroying the weapon, we likely could not with just our section. At least not enough to sufficiently dissuade the defunct exerlus. Given the labor resources their machines grant them, they could rebuild a section of it pretty easily. Though it needing to be functional is clearly not necessary since its not even working right now and according to the Ika it has never worked before that they’re aware of.

Winter reports that she’s devised where the grimoire is down to a specific vault in a specific building. It’s in the collection of the gang she mentioned last month. They are fully aware of what the book is though and they don’t want to trade it. If anything they are probably trying to study it in order to become the next Rozanis. Basically there is a demon necromancer living in the modern equivalent of a wizard tower hoarding it and trying to learn everything they can from it before someone comes asking questions. Winter has managed to avoid any serious trouble at the moment, but they’re not going to let her have it clearly. In terms of options, she says she could just launch an assault on this demon necrocarnate if we sent her about a hundred people and maybe an extra agent. Though this risks taking overt action within the Demon Kingdom, and that’s how Renjala got into a whole mess before. Nah division might have some people who could be a bit quieter about it though she isn’t fully aware of the actual abilities and limitations of the division so she just offered that as a suggestion. Alternatively, she might be able to convince the other local powers that they should stop all this from happening though she has no way to guarantee the book winding up in her possession after attempting to set up a fight like that.

Koharrel asks if there are still plans to set up a portal between Sugnam and Diadem given that the Sugnam have only agreed to a trial membership rather than formally joining. She reports that things are continuing smoothly and the old regime is basically dead now thanks to the Teeth having hit that critical point where its obvious they can’t be stopped. The new leader of the Sugnam Republic is now utilizing Federation technology to get into contact with other galactically aware civilizations in the area. Koharrel thinks they’re trying to survey what things are like for other people who are in this sort of position. She has also noted that they seem to be growing interested in what is going on in the other hemisphere, less so due to the demons and more so due to the fact that if the planet isn’t united it has a lot less bargaining power in general. The Demons have no real stake to the world’s governments and are just here as an independent mining company.

Ronnair is headed to Janus as requested.

The Diadome agency has prepared to set up portals in places all over the Reach and sent some people out to get started on prep work for that. Well are in the process of doing so, getting a bunch of people onto ships and across the galaxy for months at a time takes a bit of prep but you get the idea. They’re on it. We might need to expand Diadome seating for the 8th time though if you’re going to let spectators take the trip too.

As for asking Echo about the exerlus kill loop, she said she has asked organics the same question for millions of years. If you figure out how to convince them to work together on their shared objective, you should start applying that skill to achieving galactic peace. I’m still not sure the Exerlus are supposed to be cheeky like that. Even if this is a slightly different case she doesn’t seem to consider it particularly different than watching us go to war with our own kind over the far more nuanced motivation of power land and wealth. More importantly, if you did convince them to work together to share control of the ring’s weapon wouldn’t they just team up on us? I don’t know when I’ve ever heard someone say ‘we’re keeping this super weapon secure and safe under our control’ without also threatening ‘so that i can shoot you with it’. ‘Control the weapon’ doesn’t sound like ‘keep it from ever shooting’ and seems a lot like ‘so that I can shoot it when I want to’.

The delegation to meet with the lightning elementals reports meeting earth and lightning elemental hybrids in the process created by Waianoa. Now  you might be asking, what the hell does that even look like? How do you combine a rock with lightning? I asked too, and have been flipping through the pictures for the last hour. Whatever that psionic potion your rock girl keeps making is some seriously strong stuff. I wonder if she could mix a fenalis with one of these moths to make something even cuter?

As for the elementals, the archon of lightning is more conservative with the deployment of his elementals than Mokihi or Mahuea. For the same reasons as Moa Metala actually, lightning elementals are very exploitable by humanoids. We already turn our own kind into mana batteries, obviously lightning elementals are one of the most premium of premium options for such technology. Similar to what happened to the solar aliens that Selona turned into batteries to power his own stuff. So you can see why they are much more protective of the elementals leaving the plane to work in the middle ones. While they can survive the heat of the rim they have a different problem in that they really like complex atmospheres, so they’re pickier about planets than the fire elementals.

The recent Astral Wilds radar experiment has kept me up for three days trying to figure out what happened. As far as I can tell from the interviews, recordings, footage, and asking New Age to help me piece it all together – you guys found something that reacted to being observed or followed the flow of whatever the radar was doing back to it. Hisashi was regressed to a child though kept all of his mental facilities intact, though he occasionally enters a comatose state where he just disappears from reality for hours at a time. Usually while asleep so it hasn’t affected his day to day too much. He however has full memories of who he is and was and all my information aligns to his story. You on the other hand, do not remember this but you used to be some sort of humanoid lich. Half of the team has no memory of this either, though I do and some of the people I talked to give the exact same description as what I remember even though others seem to have no idea that you were ever not a kobold. I’m told by Vasia that this has happened before but there are no records to prove or disprove the phenomenon.

That being said, despite his body Hisashi is still able to do his job albeit maybe not so great with the swords anymore. According to him, whatever you guys found this time wasn’t Zero but an offspring of Zero’s. Which implies that Zero has not only found a way to maintain permanence in the Astral Plane but has found a way to transfer this property and reproduce. We’ve also reported that Valjala has started to show signs of decay. On a grand scale it isn’t too noticeable but internal plane is collapsing rather than expanding now, given a few million years it will likely be only the size of its local galactic cluster and a little longer until it fades out from existence. Hisashi believes that thing found Valjala as well as you guys and is now feeding on it from the outside. While the effects are less than a percent of a percent, this has made a measurable pandem impact on the traveling crystals that began to form when Valjala was originally created.

Basically, that radar created a signal that drew the attention of some sort of astral creature derived from Zero that is now feeding off of our planar cluster in some weird way. Also half the people in the room no longer exist in one way or another, you’re a kobold now, and Hisashi is a very old child. In summary: you poked at some weird shit until it poked back. Also the radar’s ‘phylactery’ is just a backup memory crystal but there isn’t really a way to use incarnum to recreate a machine that has no innate essentia as far as we know.

Eerihild has gone off to Hephal though is still making her way across the Reach to get there.

The knight that was subjected to the psionic parasite has been retired as requested, though they’re not very responsive to their caretakers so far. We’ll see how that develops over time. Inya reports that thus far giving the parasite other animals has shown no sign of developing language understanding. Though the animals do become more active, not in a hostile way but they do try to wander around more than they would prior to infection. The psionic experts that were called in to help report that the parasite is really trying to do two things. What looks like its natural curiosity or tendency to feed on experiences is actually attempting to stimulate the brain of whatever it is inhabiting. In doing so it is tracking what areas experience activity. The other thing it is doing is expanding its own psyche to match whatever it infects. The species isn’t biological so it doesn’t grow according to any sort of genetic predetermination. It is actually likely that Reachers have inadvertently gotten this thing off the planet before and no one knows where it is. With the rats all we can tell is that the creature reproduces a lot less rapidly than Disaster Six. They don’t infect everything around them one after another in a chain reaction, rather there is just one of these things and so far we have not gotten it to reproduce while in captivity.

Irae reports that things are still going fine on the apocalyptic world once visited by Haleh. It is likely that if anyone in this place could have fought back against her, Haleh got to them first. And we do know that Haleh has a tendency to deliberately hunt down the strongest people, whether to recruit them or demonstrate her superiority. The church of the traveller continues to gain ground with the locals slowly but surely since the opposition keeps turning into Irae’s reanimated soldiers anyways. The portals are definitely helping the spread as well.

Otto reports that “THE BUGS ARE REAL NOT JUST IN MY MIIIIIND”. According to Lailah he went to sleep and woke up covered in small insects that were eating through a scab on his leg because he didn’t realize the sensation was actually insects instead of a side effect of whatever he was smoking that particular day. The Evershar colony continues to expand with the help of the earth elementals but so far everything is fairly stable. Lailah reports that she is mostly just checking seals and using repellents. Larger bitier things tend to be taken care of by Evershar’s defense grid but its the little ones that keep causing the most trouble.

As someone who grew up with the exiles and lived under the constant reminder that Kanika was right about everything – I’ve never really noticed the way she evaluates the worth of anything. Even the most holistic philosophies, like the druids, make room for incredible violence and destruction if it gets them something they want. 6ix stands in our way, and these animals might help us understand how to deal with it. If we’re willing to expend hundreds of lives assaulting Nekhul again, why wouldn’t be willing to expend some rats and psionic parasites? The value of life is only important to those with no control over their lives. People like you and Kanika have evaluated it at being worth less than numbers on sheets. Otherwise we wouldn’t be losing lives every day on the Diadem front lines just to say we own a fancy ringworld. We would have just built a regular space station or gone to some other world with much more logistically manageable challenges. To people like me, Kanika being a dragon really doesn’t make her look any different than anyone else with power and resources. That’s why the Reachers don’t like big governments. With that much power comes the inevitability that those who don’t have that power become statistics. It’s why my friends ask me to hang out less and less these days. Ever since I got this job, now I have power they can’t conceive of wielding. The first lesson you taught me about that power is how to decide who lives and who dies in order to accomplish the goals of the order after all.

We still only know a little bit about Elasyn from traveler’s stories and thirty years ago the Federation sent three people to go look around and get the lay of the land. In a way it is a very alien civilization that functions by means we would never really consider viable but apparently someone did. Other than that we are relying just on the stories. With that information, we do know that Elasyn is a fallen world from the Ika alliance sixteen thousand years ago. It is a vast and persistent ecumenopolis similar to Diadem though it doesn’t have the population to support that level of development. Like Diadem. You can see how the two places are both linked to the same fallen civilization. Various districts and cities there maintain their own affairs, such as utilities and security. Without a central government no one is really doing anything for the benefit of others around them in terms of construction. So the ship power generator hooked up to one district only has physical wiring to its immediate area that had it built rather than a national power grid as a more harmonious civilization might do. Security is handled by individual gangs controlling these districts.

Despite being one massive continuous city at first glance, you could really look at the place as if it were a well camouflaged collective of independent colonies. Sometimes with miles of empty buildings between those colonies. They don’t have a military the same way we do, just a lot of people are armed and if they can be convinced to fight for something – such as wherever they call home – then suddenly the sheer number of people with guns becomes very notable. No one really invades Elasyn not because of its own defenses but because you run the risk of pissing off the entire Reach if you try since everyone tends to have some stake in the place. Though according to Vanessa there is reason to believe the planet has incredible defenses that are hidden. There is also an unconfirmed rumor that a mysterious armada will appear out of nowhere if the place is sincerely invaded. The story goes that the armada showed up, obliterated some ambitious fleet, and then disappeared again. It is highly possible knowing what we do now that there is a Warrens entrance in Elasyn’s solar system. Vanessa also picked up some interesting rumors that are all over the place but keep repeatedly mentioning Grand Chief Amasis in many of the stories. It is possible that Amasis is either somehow related to the Blaiken that live in the Warrens or is one of the entities that ran from them and in some chain of events that has something to do with Elasyn’s formation.

Vanessa also reports that Elasyn really isn’t all that bad. It’s just people living out their lives without a larger government to organize them. It’s just one city that’s completely crazy, to the point that she can’t make sense of it. She would guess some grand conspiracy somehow maintains it in a state of constant chaos. Though from here I can run some basic analysis. It’s population density is so high that really it just makes sense for organics to cause a bunch of trouble. Enphidia isn’t anywhere near as large or dense but it still has a lot of street violence and gang wars over tomatoes. Where there is economic opportunity there is also competition for it and it is just the way things go when they don’t have the regulation that us superior machines do. Though it is home to the chaos calculator so it would also make sense that he would keep the whole place in a permanent state of maximized chaos while somehow sustaining it.

We’ve also told Adrienne to come back from her work with the Zhulkites to prepare for the tech showcase that will be at the next Diadome festival as one of the other attractions besides the tournament. I’ve also invited the filthy elf to prep their work. We’ll be a part of a much larger show featuring mechs, cars, cyberware, and basically whatever the Adelaide corps are up to and want to market. We’re hoping to make a big deal of the voidforged showcase to get the attention of maybe some other mechanical species that might be out there somewhere. That and for the collection of some survey data related to the recent projects of overhauling Voidforged design philosophy we can use to figure out what the people themselves are interested in. Might be time to prepare some marketing and demo reels if you want to push any particular design philosophy. This one will be available to the public, and you know how the public sometimes might be influenced by less desirable qualities.

The latest Nekhul test of sending down some automated ships with their guns activated. Orbital observation reports watching the ships get ripped to pieces one after the other. Notably, the creatures did not change their behavior for the ships that were armed to provide them some resistance though they did get through the ship’s defenses very quickly. After the first ship self destructed they very quickly started disabling or triggering the explosions with each successive one, so they did recognize we were messing with them but it they still attacked the ships with enthusiasm. Si-Yeon reports that the only signs of metallic materials she can find on the planet are on these creatures and the few functioning buildings that remain intact like the planetary shield, it’s associated power facilities, and some other mysterious structures whose purpose she cannot discern. They behave as if they are starving for any metal they can get ahold of. Their behavior would be incredibly unique among mechanical species due to the way they move and the vigor they have for getting to the ships, or very common among Hive World species.

Reviewing VSEC who were never exposed to Disaster 6 reveals no detectable change between them and those who were. Which at least tells us that it’s not doing something physical to their fleshy brains beyond maybe smoothing some wrinkles or something. So at the very least the psionic super weapon isn’t terribly destructive to those it infects, which is good to know before we send more people back into that mess.

The team has been dispatched to assist with Renjala’s missionary plan as requested and start some propaganda campaigns. It is notable that the presence of other highly influential Solians has been picked up by the others and they’re starting to become more aware of galactic meddling.

Natasha has noted their awareness of this has prompted them to seek out assistance from others in the Reach, though they haven’t gotten much response on the matter yet. Though something to keep an eye on.

We’ve installed more turrets as requested to round the numbers off and another big ship has been added to the flotilla.

As for targets within the Hassani, their armchair generals are the abominations and monsters. The only mortals to achieve positions that high are those like Alystra who as we’ve noticed – aren’t exactly incompetent. Also learning that the Hydra has been putting pandem binds on people under its command means that we should do some additional scouting with the help of pandem knowledgeable agents to determine the validity of the target. Haggard reports this all has a lot to do with the structure of the Hassani. They don’t really have old men behind desks of higher offices, there is no need for them to maintain productivity from those they deem to be waning. Dragons are basically handed mayorship at the minimum and higher offices as well. The entire structure of the Hassani has powerful individuals wielding power over various groups of masses.

While not insurmountable or without opportunity, it feels relevant as your advisor to point out this means any of these attempts have a massively skewed risk to reward ratio. Targeting weaker individuals to disrupt their empire risks us getting caught and thus being blown up by the Hassani shortly afterwards. The reward being we take out some guy who is the assistant to a dragon who actually runs the place. All of this requires a much more thought out plan of what we’re building up to. Taking random action against the Hassani is too great of a risk for too small of a reward. Kaylen we had particular interest in given our history with her. Though any further action against the Hassani will need to be brought up with the member states. We learned that doing this endangers the entire Federation very quickly. If you want some minor targets, I can present them, but is it worth risking another Jaal’Darya attack just to be a mild nuisance? You’ll need to convince the other Federation members to vote on that one.

Stories of Lore 66

Greetings, this is Nakka’s News from the Reach Broadcast Network.Today we examine the people and ongoing trends as affected by current market forces. To help you plan your social investments as well as monetary.

Recently we have seen the northern sector experience constant chaos. The immigrants from the galactic north have been integrating slowly but surely as they can. Though some have been second guessing their decision, even seeing attempts to return to the galactic north with reports that the Zhulkite borders have started to become re-established with help from the infamous Iron Cradle. Though they are still likely to desperately need metal, mining operations are at an all time high as an entire galactic sector has been stripped bare by the Exerlus. Ship salvage is becoming worth more as raw material in the galactic north, so no need to fix those junkers up as long as you can haul them.

The Vessians have become much more sparse in the galactic north after an encounter with the infamous Queen of Ashes, in which it was discovered she was deliberately hunting them. It remains unconfirmed if the Federation deliberately sent her to do so.

Speaking of which, the Federation has been observed meddling once again, but now much further from home. Establishing an uplifting project for the Sugnam people in the south west area. Of course to absorb them, this is much further than they usually extend their efforts. Rumors are floating around of Federation explorers as far south as Kawako Six. They are likely planning some big moves, and if you live along the western corridor you may wish to consider your social investments in preparation.

On the other side of our home, Grand Chief Amasis has initiated the invasion of a neighboring system called Hephal. Home to a primitive species who have barely figured out how to get across water let alone space. It appears the pressures of the Vessian famine have driven them to seek yet another world to devour. The Vessians have historically acted more as individual mercenaries who scavenged the Reach to sustain their voracious appetites. Though with Haleh hunting them in the northern sector this has cut them off their more independent members from the wealth of food brought in by the Hive Worlds and the Federation farming operations. It appears they have consolidated several tribes to launch much larger formal invasions than they have in the past. Even going so far as to petition for and acquire formal approval from Grand Chief Amasis to support a colonizing effort on the soon to be conquered world. This may lead to a more isolated vessian society, and their mercenaries that many rely upon might become a little more scarce in other locations as they focus their efforts on large scale operations with their own kind. This might also be exceedingly dangerous if you live in their neighborhood.

In the southern section we have seen the constant growth of new initiates to the Reach. The solian demons continue to expand their influence, faster than even previously predicted. They are culturally distinct for their devious methodology backed sometimes surprising raw power. A dangerous combination. However, among their kind is a sub species known as the succubus. Similar to the Kanis species, they are capable of reproducing with practically anyone. Demand is growing rapidly, in the chaos of the reach finding a suitable partner among the sea of alien species can be quite difficult for rarer species. Succubi not only alleviate this issue, but are surprisingly docile. Making them almost ideal for the harem trafficking trades and resulting in a spike of interest in the market. As we know, this market tends to be particularly volatile and violent, so its expansion in the southern areas because of renewed interest is likely to have ramifications over time. No one knows where this sub species of demon comes from, but a Demon Lord named Lilli seems to have a constantly renewing supply. She can be contacted via the demon fortress that was newly established on Elasyn itself. Several of these creatures have been implemented at entertainment districts for those who would like sample the matter before making any bold decisions.

Rumors of a tech showcase have been brewing in Federation space related to the Voidforged. It is expected to feature some of the latest innovations in cybernetic technology, production, and fashion. Given the rarity of cybernetic components, it might be a good time to procure some contacts before a potential surge in the market.

The construction of the stations along the hyperlane has started, though it is a lot of stations and supplies to ship around. Also a portion of the construction supplies were stolen by pirates, not an abnormal amount but still worth noting that this region of space isn’t heavily traversed likely due to their presence. The pirates don’t seem to have any formal association with any groups we know of but we have reason to think this region is home to some smaller pirate organization.

Right now a major thing to consider is that we are building and supplying several station but they are empty shells at the moment. Convincing people to move there might be the next step so that there is any reason to visit them beyond just fuel.

Vynnoth points out that the whole “respecting federation laws” thing might be the issue with the blue dragon. They’re in that young reckless phase that Haleh never grew out of. So it’s hard to guarantee they don’t have some issues with some law or another. Also we would need to figure out where to find the people to fill the town intended to give to them. It’s a harder sell than normal given what happened to Sol to tell thousands of people to move to some town near the Diadem section borders so they can become a dragon’s minions. So those are some points to consider.

Vynnoth has sent some people to Jydoq to find the bronze dragon as requested while the base is being constructed to hand over to them if they can be convinced to come along.

Siora and Haleh are back from the plate expedition and the collection of memory crystals they acquired in the process have been sent to the tech department to extract it from. After two weeks they think they found the flight logs for the departing Ika fleet we were looking for and the angle they departed at. Then did a lot of math to account for everything moving for thousands of years to get our best guess. It doesn’t actually make that much sense unless they were going somewhere else as a pit stop on the way. The scientists were very excitable to go over the seventh iteration of calculations and ideas. They think this fleet didn’t leave from Diadem headed directly for the next galaxy, they went somewhere else first. By accounting for where everything in the galaxy would have been all that time ago, we have a solar system in the Hive Worlds to explore. For lack of any idea what is there, it’s currently HWZ-567. I have had the engineering team reinforce the bolts on Lancaster’s medical tank to ensure she doesn’t get out and try to go immediately again.

Wonaya and Ronnair reported that the Blaiken prison they were sent to find is more than abandoned, it was deliberately destroyed by what they think was an orbital bombardment. It is likely that the Blaiken sent another fleet to clean up the mess after Echo Prime destroyed their previous one. They have been sifting through the scraps but it is difficult to find anything useful.

Koharrel reports that the Sugnam Republic has been warned about the demons on the other side of the planet. However they’re still slow to respond to that. Those are problems on the other side of the planet and they are still consolidating things within the republic, as well as deploying the Tungsten Teeth to take over other territories nearby. Freeing the slaves while conquering the kingdoms to add to themselves as it were.

Continued observation of the starless deep space planet yields that the place likely has no intelligent life or at least not enough to construct anything technologically advanced. However, it has massive quantities of highly developed organisms and crystal structures. Scans indicate that this random point in space is likely a Warrens exit, which fits what we know about the Warrens leading all over the universe. Which would explain the high development of the planet despite lacking a star to give it any energy to work with. Though it is still very dark and cold, the native life is adapted to living in what we would consider incredibly inhospitable conditions.

Winter reports that after a lot of running around various back alleys, fences, pawn shops, and other places to look for salvage she believes the grimoire fell into the hands of what she would call a gang. They aren’t led by a demon lord but they seem ambitious and might one day try to become one. She is aware that they are lying when they say they don’t know what it is, but that is all she can tell for certain as they aren’t really answering her questions.

After awhile of data collection Hisashi’s research has come a bit further along and managed to figure out what he is detecting to an extent. However, we have at least confirmed that some of this stuff is nearly undetectable because it changes properties every few seconds. However, experimenting on you reveals that anything of particular interest in the Astral Wilds can be determined simply by getting 40% of the same data more than twice. Which does narrow down how to find Zero. Just look for anything that maintains a quarter of its properties for longer than five minutes. The initial dataset is him basically detecting you and the plane he is scanning from. Another challenge is the Astral Wilds disrupting his radar itself and now he has to build another one because his got turned into solid potassium for no apparent reason and then took off through the wall because it lost the ability to be physical and no one knows what force of gravity it was drawn to but it wasn’t anywhere in the asteroid lab. So there’s a chunk of potassium floating through Valjala to who knows where now. So he’s building another one, though unless a way to protect it from the Wild’s is devised these might be one time use things. Though shielding it the way you and the other planar entities shield themselves isn’t an option because doing renders the scanner useless. Essentially, to receive any intelligible information from the Wilds is to expose yourself to it. Though the machine lets you read the screen as a sort of translator so the operator doesn’t have to be the one to peer into the Astral Wilds themselves. Also he needs to build a bigger one to scan further out in order to look for Zero. If you want to clear the fifteen million credit research budget for the next sized one.

Before you go and kill Kaylen. A reminder that the Astral Wilds severs binds by way of traveling to infinite distance. You need to take her to Ankathi’s cluster or a similar distance, not just sit in the Astral Wilds. You were able to detect your own binds and find your way home by homing in on your rock wife once you were close enough, but couldn’t while you were reaaaally far away. Also ‘near-death’ might be too broad of a statement. The only reported method of ever working was the suspended essentia of Kharla’s doll spell. Slapping her into the hospital likely won’t do anything, neither will lichifying her. This really puts into perspective why all those warlocks back in the day couldn’t get out of their deals. Also why no one has found a way to escape Lillith’s contracts, this is hard.

Irae and the lances have gone to preach the good word to the post apocalyptic world of those aliens that Haleh blew up. Progress is slow since showing up to preach an alien god and his magic is enticing to some and fairly obviously a bad idea to others. There is now a counter movement to tell people to stop talking to Irae and while the attempts to kill Irae and the knights haven’t gone well for them. Those who have gone along with Irae’s preaching have now also been building a place to study pandem and test ideas of it. We are basically the demon cult of this planet now and beset by crusaders with scrapyard shotguns. Irae has been reanimating corpses of the crusaders and its very impressive to the followers and very terrifying to the other side of things. History majors are suddenly feeling very nostalgic.

The Insider has been constructed as asked. A moment of silence for the Rim Reaper concept.

We’ve begun construction of the Bifrost and Helheim stations as you requested. As well as consolidating the refineries into a bigger company to go around and mine whatever else they can harvest. Due to low competition and ease of access they’re currently rummaging around Valjala.

Waionoa points out she was technically already a cleric of Mokihi, but not with pandem methods. She just happened to live on the turtle as it were. Though she’s alright, and currently seeing the expansion of her production ever since Lilli started exporting Succubi again with the restrictions being lifted despite Quyana’s constant petitioning. It appears that despite Federation assistance, Quyana wasn’t able to win out with the Court of Lords for much longer due to the obvious interests in their recent expansion into the Reach and the distinct value exporting succubi had for their efforts. That’s a whole other matter. Wainoa is just basically busy with increased production and Mokihi is currently passing through the domain of a lightning elemental so she’s been having fun with that.

Inya’s expedition reports that the infected knight has been able to bind with the parasite, but this created a feedback issue since they inhabit the same psyche. This actually killed the parasite, but it almost killed the knight too. The knight is now incredibly messed up and lost several subconscious functions, most importantly breathing. The knight is on life support if they aren’t conscious enough to breath manually and exhibits a strong loss of cognitive functionality. This has served to further our understanding of why its called a parasite and not just a psionic life form. It was taking over her subconscious functions and likely shares some similarities to Koura parasites and how Si-Yeon became a whole new…thing…with hers. We don’t know what its end goal was but for some reason it was getting really deep into that Knight’s psyche.

As for psionic experts, if we’re ruling out Winter who is on track to be the Federation’s most powerful one. Larazja has a lot of Ilex’s knowledge passed on through the synapse. Though she can’t be described as an active practitioner. The cult of lucidity is still kicking around if you want to get one of them.

The idea of mixing it with Eden, it’s hard to say at this stage. It isn’t really a matter of overpowering it as much as keeping one’s own thoughts distinct from it’s. Further data would be needed with analysis from a psionics expert.

Mahuea sent some fire elementals scouting around the Rim to see what they can figure out to do with the area. The earth elementals, which are the same ones that helped with Diadem projects, are still hanging around Evershar’s colony. They still like to party.

When it comes to finding a druid to help with your incarnum space moths, I’m not sure how much a druid could help considering you bound to a bunch of them and that’s more control than most druids can pull off unless they do so as well with their animal companions. Though if you do still want help from druidic methods, the issue is most of them are bound to Haziel already. The rixa based section of them are bound to Jaerda instead. You sort of did so much work for the druid population and pushed for the pantheon so much that they don’t really have any independents laying around anymore. So you might have to work out a trade with one of them.

Also as a planar entity, the binds are giving them your domain spells rather than the other way around.

Drug research continues though Deniau points out that this is kind of a holy grail of psionics to be able to remove memories and only a twenty thousand year old galactic super weapon has ever been observed with the ability to do so. Which means restoring memories is also radically new territory. The next issue is the lack of new subjects. Deniau’s lab is a rather humane place of experimentation and a lot of the victims of Number Six have been in active rehabilitation so that they can get back to their normal lives, which makes them poorer and poorer subjects with each passing therapy session. He also isn’t really sure what Six does to people to remove those memories so its hard to determine if he should take a more physical or psychological approach to the situation. VSEC medical records don’t have brain or psyche scans as a part of a regular checkup making it difficult to get a before and after picture of what happened to them beyond the surface level loss of memories. Progress is effectively stalled at this point now that the easy ideas have been tested to not work.

We’ve continued with the ambassadorial tour, and becoming largely a trade station for bits and bobs along the way. Given the size and stability of the Iron Cradle, unless its attacked by Rahlken, we are kind of a convenient mobile station. I imagine with some marketing, there would be some potential in becoming a mobile reach station. We could charge rent, let people live here, be come the interstellar permanent living cruise ship. I’m sure nothing bad would come of having a bunch of pirates live with us or publishing our destination to everyone.

Setting up embassies is basically just renting some random place, but most stations do not really participate in large scale politics deliberately. Which means protecting said embassy is entirely up to us. Rampart did this at Kuhas by way of also having a bunch of gangsters led by Allison. You could probably accomplish an easier effect just by keeping nothing worth stealing in the place though.

As for Elasyn, they do not have diplomats or anyone to talk to. The point of Elasyn is actually its lack of government. No one is fixing the roads, maintaining building codes, or deciding who owns what land. Its sort of a galactic oddity that its able to function and maintain so much power over such a large galactic sector despite all of this. It was really just the meeting ground of powerful people because it is an independent location. Over thousands of years it developed itself into a super power just by virtue of being somewhere everyone was passing through all the time. It is probably why despite being within the Reach we’ve been able to ignore it for so long and no one has come knocking. No one wants taxes, treaties, agreements, or to tell us what to do as members of the Reach. Which is real convenient at times and sometimes the silence is unnerving otherwise. Somehow Elasyn predates the solian galactic awakening but even before the calculator got involved with it, it spent thousands of years as one of the most powerful ‘governments’ in the galaxy. We still don’t know how or why.

In other news, while construction is still finishing for the Minnisógnir station collective, a lot of the important systems are operational already. Given that the most important one were the giant telescopes, got that done pretty easily. Observation of the surface of Nekhul has yielded further information about the place. Si-Yeon has confirmed that there are things down there. Looking at them from orbit with an old fashioned telescope doesn’t give the best angle and we can’t create a scan to show you, but if you want you can see these pictures from above as well as almost to the side. Though the important details from Si-Yeon is that they are a lot of them. They are hard to track through the forest but she expects there are at least tens of thousands of them at the minimum. Likely millions, possibly billions. While we can’t get the best image of them from above, we can watch how they move and determine that many of them are either metallic or wearing metal armor. Sizes range from standard humanoids to fifteen meters tall. Many of the larger ones are mostly stationary. Standing in place for extended periods of time. This lil bit sticking out is likely a weapon.

This leaves room for a lot of speculation on all the small details, but it is likely the planet is overrun with these things though they show little sign of being an advanced civilization to justify the damage that was done to our few surviving mechs. Si-Yeon crashed one of the cruisers unmanned into the planet’s surface just to observe how they reacted to it. Whatever these things are, they immediately approached the crash site and within hours had stripped it down until the only evidence remaining of the cruiser was the broken trees where it had once landed. She observed that they weren’t attacking it or repairing it so much as breaking it down into raw salvage very rapidly. Though because of the forest she has no idea what became of the salvage afterwards.

For whatever reason, the creatures are drawn to metal by a seemingly animal impulse. She put in a request to have Wonaya stop by the station on her way back from her assignment in the galactic north for further consultation.

We’ve seen to expanding the offices and retool some of the docks in Enphidia’s location for shipping and receiving purposes for the mining company’s imports.

More turrets were constructed

As for major targets, depends what you have in mind. Kaylen was a special case of being important to us but not that important to them. Also we didn’t know about her bind with the Hydra before we did it so no guarantees we’ll figure that one out in time before abducting anyone else. That being said, our attempts of infiltrating the Hydra’s network has still always been a bit of an odd area since everything is maintained so separately. If anything the Hydra operates a lot like the Gauntlet once did. Using a decentralized collection of people who may or may not even know who they’re really associated with. We know a few of his operations that we’ve either infiltrated or kept tabs on over the years but there’s always more and none of them seem to have a direct connection to any other group. This is largely because each of the heads make up another member, it’s like dealing with our whole office if we were all physically attached to the same body.

I know Lancaster wanted to look into getting some of the other council members of Alnae from the Phantoms at some point and that might be a good place to start but it is hard to discern their temperament. Any other officers for intel would need to be a little less broad, what kind of intel are you looking for?

On another note, we’ve seen to establishing a secret base in the Demon Kingdom to keep better tabs on them. Though with even some rudimentary work, we’ve already found some details about what Euron did with Kharla. Because this was a very public event for the demons. Rather than being returned as the matriarch of House Vloz’Khress, she has been sent to the Demon King’s personal castle. Though its hard to assess what specifically is going on within there and we’re working on deepening our intelligence network in the area to find more information.

Though it is worth remembering that Kharla was one of the only people who the Phantoms were a bit worried about. With the current political situation between the Kingdom, Hassani, and Federation – I would assume Kharla was an opportunity to ‘attack the Federation’ and not piss off the Hassani while also securing an asset even the Hassani respect to dissuade any hostilities. Notably, they didn’t cause any problems for any branch of the Federation other than Ankathi who is not an actual member anyways. She just lets the Astral Order hang out with the Celestial one a lot, but it is sort of like the situation we once had with the Kar’Soluth not being formal members of the Hassani. Speculation aside, it is definitely worth keeping an eye on what they’re doing with Kharla. It could even be as simple as they just really like her the way we went to get Kaylen back.

Kuhas refuses the idea of officially joining the Federation. It is a part of their duty to maintain the hive border and not get too involved in power struggles. Especially between the Reach’s large scale political bodies who might have motive to destroy a border station just to ruin someone else’s day down the road. The Federation is still a relatively new foreign guest to the Reach, but Kuhas has spent thousands of years preventing the hive worlds from spreading their influence into the rest of the Reach and enjoys a bit of peace for that. Not to mention that less than scrupulous people tend to avoid border guards and the Federation hasn’t proven itself truly at home within the Reach’s culture. The last thing Kuhas wants is smugglers intentionally going around it, the lawless associated nature of the station promotes visits from everyone that needs their ship scrubbed down. Otherwise the spores of the hive worlds might spread further south.

From the early scout reports, the station south of Kuhas and north of Elasyn at the crossroads of the interstate is a station called Belomday. It exists above a planet that reached mutual destruction between all parties involved and left the surface of the world as an uninhabitable wasteland. The planet is still questionable to visit due to the intensely toxic atmosphere but some go down there to scavenge as it is otherwise just used as a trash disposal site. Belomday is a collection of space stations that strapped themselves together after the war thousands of years ago. The survivors of the war who lived in orbit would develop a self sustaining civilization that only used the surface of their former homeworld for resource collection. Eventually the stations of many nations were bound together and further added onto while the civilization rebuilt itself. They are considered one of if not the actual founding civilization that created the Reach as we know it today. Over time Belomday grew massive and exists as one of the largest space stations in the Reach simply by need to support its own native population. It is approximately three million square kilometers, not counting for the fact that it has multiple vertical layers.

The original natives were a warrior society, which sort of explains the problem they got themselves into with destroying their own planet in a war of mutual destruction. Though this is also why they are considered to potentially be the original Reachers. As soon as they figured out interstellar travel, they quickly made a mess of things to acquire even more resources for to sustain their station locked civilization. Though these natives eventually became more machine than their original organic forms, relying heavily on cybernetics to augment themselves just to survive. Then out of a transhumanist style of growth as the technology advanced and became more desirable overall.

It is a popular place to sell salvage since the natives need raw material to continue the expansion and maintenance of this colossal station. Rahlken often sells his captured cities here as one of his major places of interest. Now days it is one of the Reach’s most important locations and probably would have been the official unofficial capital of the network were not for the specific desire to use a place with no surviving ties to any civilization. Elasyn is a fallen world, serving as a glorified tombstone to its former inhabitants and it became the capital because no one could claim it as their own. The populace of Belomday are intensely Reachers. It is a location filled with hundreds if not thousands of individual species from all over the galaxy, its natives are not even the majority of the inhabitants anymore. Though it is also one of the few places were goods are produced reliably, since the station has the practical job of maintaining a nation of people it has many features not often found on Reach stations. Like working factories and farms.

Explorers report they outright oppose the idea of the Federation expanding at all let alone joining. Belomday is thoroughly embedded into the Reach and doesn’t like the idea of interstellar super powers enforcing their laws onto a traditionally lawless land.

As for large scale colonization efforts, the space between the major highways between us and Utewa are largely home to civilizations with less protections for interstellar piracy. Generally more focused on just being their own civilization and not getting themselves into trouble. Some are heavily fortified though as to dissuade Reachers from visiting. Though there is also a lot of wandering trouble in space to contend with. Reports indicate that the area is home to some sort of space based life form that likes to eat ships and no one is really sure what it is or if it actually exists. We could focus our efforts on diplomacy but many of the governments along the way tend to try to keep to themselves. If we colonize less inhabited areas it will be relatively easy going but we’ll have to build everything from scratch and see to populating it. There is a fallen world that is a pile of apocalyptic rubble that probably wouldn’t mind help but Haleh is the one that destroyed them. So they might still be upset about that.

The station immediately north from Utewa, other than the one that Utewa owns as a forward colony called Kawako Six. Another major crossroads station and is a popular road into Utewa’s territory. Not quite as large or important as Belomday but it serves as a gateway into Utewa’s neighborhood. The system it belongs to is colonized by a multi-stellar civilization who were using that system for expansion, though it became popular with travelers due to its consistency and the owners of the station being particularly hungry for business opportunities. The natives are not quite what Sol defines as shapeshifters but they are capable of altering their anatomy to different environments and can change some details of their physical appearance such as their coloration. Apparently it was once a part of their mating rituals as well as a rudimentary camouflage adaptation. Throughout the Reach races they are particularly talented explorers because of these abilities which is likely tied to their interstellar civilization’s expansion, since they are not very picky about their environmental needs and can colonize any planet with an atmosphere that isn’t super-hostile.

Kawako Six is a fairly good representation of how the Reach tends to evolve. The multi-stellar civilization that runs the area have their own society and are distinctly separate from the Reachers in the way they operate, but they just so happened to build a space station which was consumed by the Reachers as a point of interest. Their planets are still relatively disconnected from the Reach network and continues to manage its own affairs with its own distinct culture. Though they own and control Kawako Six, the benefits of interstellar trade and travelers led to it slowly becoming home to the Reachers. Over time the natives learned it was better to just play along rather than resist the sudden influx of scoundrels and ruffians. As centuries passed, the station became less of an outpost for its own space program and more of a Reach station.

The natives, known as the Tagal, were approached by the explorers to ‘feel them out’ about their opinion of the federation. They’re not particularly against trade negotiations but as one of the larger powers of the Reach they don’t see much benefit to joining a newer one. Larger in the relative sense to the thousands of civilizations and stations throughout the Reach, even if they aren’t quite at the Utewa or Tungsten Teeth’s level of influence. They are actually more helpful in explaining the Reach’s situation than Belomday were, who just said ‘don’t do that’. The Tagal’s actual civilization is two stars away, where things run a bit more what we would consider normal. They once tolerated Kawako Six’s guests and their traditions when they were a newer space faring civilization and weren’t really sure what was going on or how to contextualize thousands of different species of aliens passing through. Over time Kawako Six developed its own mind and culture and though it contributes economically to the Tagalian capital, they lost control of the situation and that was how the station became more a part of the Reach than Tagalian space. Despite the fact that they have a thriving world right underneath the station.

The Reach is anarchic by choice, ever since the fall of the Ika this region of space has been left to its own thing and it has allowed its inhabitants a sanctuary from oppressive powers like Nelta or the Zhulkites who might want things done a certain way. The Reach has an ‘every man for themselves’ type of mentality just on a larger scale. This is tied to their distrust of organizations to look out for everyone else once the ‘everyone else’ becomes managed by a system rather than personal connections. There is actually a very specific thing Reachers do not react well towards. Registration and identification. If you open a galactic DMV and demand to see passports, you aren’t really a Reach station anymore. If the Tagal were to humor the Federation that would involve a large interconnected system and notably the Federation does have registration and taxation. The two things that annoy Reachers the most. While their own civilization does use both of these systems on the planets and other stations, Kawako Six does not. Yet somehow Kawako Six has enough power that the rest of Tagal space can’t really afford to go to war with their own station.

While they can see the federation expanding by adopting newer civilizations who don’t know or want to be a part of the Reach culture, it isn’t endearing the Federation to any of the existing powers. Which they know we have a habit of doing. The Tagal are also aware that we’ve made enemies of the Hassani who have taken on the role of ‘the feared solians’ as far as galactic civilizations are concerned. The weird quiet little star that suddenly erupted into the galaxy and won major wars over and over again until it cemented itself as one of those ‘don’t piss them off’ civilizations. The tagal representative is pretty sure that Utewa will never formally align with the Federation because of this ongoing issue. Renjala revealed that Solians are some of the galaxy’s greatest pandem experts, which is what Utewa relies on for its own safety. Getting into an oppositional stance with the Hassani means becoming enemies with someone who is better than them at their own trick and they would be practically defenseless. For similar reasons the Utewa doesn’t want to piss the Federation off because we could do the very same thing to them. Both sides make Utewa feel very vulnerable for the first time in centuries and they’re constantly trying to make sure they don’t get on either’s bad side.

The exploration team reports this is a recurring theme with all the various major stations and civilizations along the Reach interstellar highway. They do not want to get involved in a larger organization than they already are for fear of attracting the attention of much bigger problems. They don’t mind trading and maintaining amicable relations in most cases, but the idea of joining the Federation is very off-putting to them for fear of everything that could go wrong for them from such a political stance. Younger civilizations tend to see the Federation as a bastion of civilization in an endless soup of anarchy and scoundrels. Such as Sugnam and the Caelkians, who haven’t been around long enough to get used to how the Reachers see the world. Established powers of the Reach on the other hand have a distinct opposition to the idea of forming large scale alliances. Though the Tagal ambassador did explain that if we wanted to make people more amicable to the idea, we’d have to take down Rahlken. His presence is the constant threat that all Reachers have to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with things like the Federation. Rahlken is the one the Zhulkites are scared of, and is perceived to be the reason that the Hassani haven’t expanded into the Reach either. He is also the primary force that keeps destabilizing any attempt at a larger system, Utewa is one of the largest powers in the Reach because they can escape him. The rest just play nice for fear of being his next target. To most he is a disembodied legend, the Reach is a massive stretch of galactic space and most have never even seen or heard of him outside of Nakka News reports and rumors. So for all they know he’s a cosmic entity. However, most of the major stations do know someone else who could have been the major station instead of them but instead became his victim. As a result, they tend not to be interested in making the same mistake.

The portals between Diadem and Twilight station have been constructed as requested.

Construction on the new city constructions near the plate borders is also underway, though slowly as it is a somewhat dangerous placement.

Vynnoth says she might know of a blue dragon that could be convinced to look for interesting opportunities out here in Diadem. Though as she warned, they can all be rather finicky and you are trying to outbid the Hassani for their attention. Right now the most promising blue dragon she can find is on the younger side so has less of a fortune in Sol to leave behind than others and would definitely be interested in some opportunities to expand it. Their name is Kasom, currently they own a more suburban county area on SV3. As an initial offering to get them interested she expects you’d have to give them command of a surface plate colony of at least twenty thousand inhabitants to match their county area on SV3 they’d be leaving behind. Blue dragons like to fly as it were. Even if the interior sections of Diadem are so massive that they could do so, trying to convince a bird that it wouldn’t prefer an open sky is pretty hard. Though the immediate complication is that Haleh also lives on a surface plate. While they could easily co-exist on opposite sides of even the same plate let alone opposite plates, these things are huge after all, it is still notable that dragon politics might flare up.

In terms of metallics, there is a bronze she might know of that is particularly keen towards getting into wars. They fought against Nelta during the invasions but lost their home, lair, hoard, and basically everything in the process. They are of a disposition towards helping in military actions but often as a mercenary. Dragons don’t like to be under someone else’s command as it were. They are currently wandering around jydoq and might be tempted towards the federation if we could offer them some sort of assurance that we aren’t going to be dead in the next two hundred  years. Also they cost eight times as much to hire as regular mercenaries but if offered a cozy mansion as well as their fees they might be willing to move their base over to Federation space. They run their own little military company, similar to Whitetalon’s whole history actually.

Vynnoth also pointed out that if you’re feeling daring, she knows of an older dragon that might be of a disposition to move across the galaxy and hang out with the Federation. They would be a significant asset on par with someone like Haleh. No one knows what color they are and they are often referred to by the title of the “imaginary dragon”. They are one of Sol’s foremost illusionists, experts in broadcast communication and visual media. The drawback is that they can be a little difficult. They are a mischievous prankster by nature and usually harmless, but every now and then people go missing around them. Part of the reason Vynnoth suggested looking into the matter is because they haven’t been in Sol since the Nelta invasion. Vynnoth has heard rumors that the imaginary dragon hopped aboard a Nelta ship and went back to their side of the galaxy to check things out. It is likely that Nelta has no idea what they ‘caught’ and are in over their heads.

The sugnam new republic has had its elections though mostly through the first fleet admiral (Walters replacement now that Walters has the big chair) sort of implying it was mandatory. They elected a fairly violent candidate which might be tied to the use of the Tungsten Teeth to topple other Sugnam governments. They’re still working their way through as it wasn’t exactly a massive quantity of mercenaries, they are just dramatically more equipped and capable so the quantity of Sugnam resistance has not been terribly effective against the quality of the mercenaries.

We already offered the new Sugnam Republic federation membership and they already agreed to a trial run of it though not a long term permanent agreement awhile ago. They’re curious about the stations though as they are not a space faring civilization themselves yet, they just managed to sneak into space aboard Reacher ships. So they’re also curious about at least shuttles and starships.

Ronnair and Wonaya are on the way to the Blaiken Prison.

The fifth plate expedition is underway though we’ve lost contact with them. This is normal and Siora goes missing all the time on these ever since the exerlus machine adaptations included more jamming technology after our attempt at warding them away with a signal, and that other time we tried to jam them.

Also the exploration crew that went to deep space looking for signs of the missing Ika fleet found something else out there in the middle of absolutely nowhere. There is a random planet with no star, existing in almost complete darkness. However it has very high levels of biological activity, a stable atmosphere, and a whole lot of really mean aliens on it. The exploration team that found it currently has no idea how or why it exists. It shows no signs of being where the missing fleet might have gone though. It’s likely an unrelated but potentially interesting discovery.

We’re still awaiting contact from Winter as to the ongoing status of her mission to the Demon Kingdom.

In the process of his research, Hisashi got his little radar to work and was able to detect the ever forming and disintegrating life forms of the Astral Wilds and confirm that is what he is detecting to  at least four percent accuracy. One of the problems is that things being ‘alive’ in the astral wilds is hard to define and sometimes the little radar is just detecting mana formations that appear similar to living things but are instead just miniature batteries. Energy sources that radiate that energy until they fizzle out. This also leads to his ongoing research as to ‘what are those things even’.

However, upon initial success he started looking to a more powerful version of the machine. He has stabilized it to look for specific patterns and is trying to figure out what he’s really even looking for. Specifically what collection of signals and information the sensor could pick up and what those would even mean to equate to ‘a thing we’re looking for’. One of the problems is defining what he is seeing without much reference, the Astral Wilds are so chaotic that a string of numbered data might be a little too ‘human’ in its comprehension to gather useful information.

He said he needs you to go in there and figure out what the numbers on the sensor readout even mean. Despite this being his field of study, he can barely protect himself from the effects of the Astral Wilds even when he is the one to summon it. It took twenty years of dedicated training for Jaerda to survive long enough with the help of two other planar entities. So it’s up to you, Jaerda, or Haziel to go and figure out what his data represents.

The team has been sent to help Evershar’s mining operations with glorified bug zappers as requested.

Inya’s team made it to the peculiar planet with psionic life forms. The knight that lowered her wards in order to attempt communication with them didn’t exactly go insane, but they keep having thoughts they know aren’t their own. It’s one thing to hear voices in your head, it’s another to hear your own voice saying things you pretty sure aren’t your normal intrusive thoughts. They are a primitive species and so don’t have very elaborate plans for galactic domination or anything, but they do not seem to enjoy the brain chemistry of their host. The more complex the psyche of the host, the more it…feeds? them. That or entertains them, not sure what they’re getting out of this exactly. Either way the knight in question has developed about three phobias, six fetishes, four disorders, and terrible impulse control. The alien life form in question isn’t exactly intentionally malicious more so that it is trying to harvest ‘experiences’ from the host. It is also a primitive world so they don’t have a refined society with an understanding of cooperation or even what we are. As far as it can tell, it just found a really intelligent creature wandering around some swamp and it’s going to ride this one out.

Over time and a period of observation, the creature started to demonstrate abnormal growth in its own intelligence while basically feeding off of the knight’s. It’s starting to think in ways it had not demonstrated itself being capable of before. It’s becoming rapidly more sapient while it inhabits the knight. One of the most notable and easily understood changes in the knight’s behavior is that now they become bored very easily. Always looking for things to do one way or another. They struggle more with each passing day to identify which thoughts might not really be theirs, as well as attempting to bargain with the strange alien to get it to move on to another host even if for a short while so they can recover.

Inya reports that their New Age researcher says it makes sense that a psionic life form could evolve its own intelligence rapidly if it has a particularly intelligent host. Though unlike 6ix, this one doesn’t go anywhere when its host goes to sleep. We have no idea how to get it back out of them. It isn’t yet smart enough to bargain or reason with, it is also really hard to tell when they’re talking to the knight versus their new parasite.

While observation is ongoing, we can sufficiently say that they are fairly primitive but it is shaping up that they will eventually evolve into something else at this rate.

Eerihild is currently in the Fae Wilds with her family until we call her again.

Also since it seems we’re not seeing the Outsider again anytime soon, we might need to commision a new flagship.

To put it lightly, Winter is dissatisfied with the idea that it’s not worth the effort to restore Lancaster. Also your replacement desk is shipping. According to this tracker it will be here in three days. I suppose it isn’t too surprising that the meat people are very touchy about familial values. No one ever gets mad and says they’d burn a world for me, and I’m almost everyone’s dad around here.

Though I think Walters and Lancaster are more concerned with how valuable the artifact wishes can be to be used on early onset alzheimers. Granted Winter is young and lived through the era of relative peace. She’s not used to seeing people dying while choking on their own blood, losing their minds as parasitic life forms eat their brains, or getting turned into Vasia experiments that leave people as a puddle of sapient flesh stuck to a wall. She’s not still behind me is she?

Anyways, one problem with your request for the LIDAR scans of the surface is the originally planned operations area is…uh…we have no idea. All records were destroyed on the ship and no one wrote it down on paper. However, we can surmise from mild observation that the first team had likely been at least interested in these city areas since we’re looking for a glorified memory stick. That aside though we have been getting some mapping done to get us an idea of what’s down there but a lot of these scans can be summed up as “that’s a lot of trees”. We have discovered some of those trees are REALLY  tall though. They’re concealing valleys and they grew tall enough to match the canopy of areas surrounding them. If you were to casually stomp through there in a mech you might suddenly find quite a deep pit to get stuck in.

We’ve also been scanning what we think were once cities. Also with some optical surveying we can determine an odd pattern. We’ve been conferring with Wonaya on the matter of how typical hive worlds look. As it turns out, ruins are not terribly uncommon but they are often a little sunken into the ground. Diadem lasted sixteen thousand years as an active warzone for endless armies of robots, suffice to say what was formerly Ika space is quite durable to decay. Something about their self maintaining machine spirits. Though what is important is what makes Nekhul stand out as abnormal compared to typical ruins in the Hive Worlds. There are only two types of things as far as we can tell, completely gone areas where structures must have once been, or still operating facilities. There is no in between. No half fallen over buildings overgrown with vines, no bombed out wrecks. It is either still intact, or completely and totally gone. Usually you would expect a bit of a gradient between the two extremes on any such fallen world.

We haven’t seen any sign of ongoing active civilization, though we know there are most likely military threats down there but it doesn’t appear to be in a collective like some sort of fortified outpost. It is quite likely the canopy of the overgrown hive forest is concealing a lot from us. Which at the very least implies that whatever is down there doesn’t build particularly vertical. At least not upwards, which rules out a city of skyscrapers. Underground tunnels or arboreal civilizations are still on the table though. However, we know the Ika are some of the greatest builders in galactic history and they do have a penchant for building obnoxiously massive things that would take the resources of multiple worlds to reasonably create. So the lack of such obvious signs is notable. However, the station construction is still finishing so we’ll see if we can get any more detailed information once observation is in place.

We’ve sent Vanessa to go hang around Diadem as requested.

The ambassadorial tour is hitting largely the same issues the Federation explorers are. Along the highway are mostly highly developed Reach stations. Normally the Federation likes to find younger, less developed, and more vulnerable civilizations to ‘recruit’ before they get assimilated into the Reach. The main route to Kuhas is dominated by very Reachy people. This close to Diadem they’re a bit more used to us and our fancy pants credits system, though to everyone else we’re the new kids around here. The idea of joining our new gang of upstarts is not particularly appealing to already established and wealthy powers. This is why the Federation ‘liberates’ primitive civilizations who are just discovering the galaxy but doesn’t get involved with the big players that overshadow us. As far as the rest of the Reach is concerned, we’re just the latest big station. We have nowhere near the prestige of Utewa or the Tungsten Teeth. We’re really just known for Vittles and sticking our nose in other people’s business for better or worse. Worth noting the Revenants are also known for that latter one.

This does sort of fit what Yasrena mentioned about us having a habit of helping out the little guy at the expense of making allies with bigger players. These stations are more aligned with the bigger powers of the Reach and its culture than Caelkia or Sugnam. They’re at least still amicable to us if nothing else for economic trade but definitely not likely to join a faction younger than them. While the Federation is a lot more powerful than any of the individual stations, that’s not endearing us to them any since they don’t perceive us as being more powerful than Rahlken or the collective power of Elasyn and its nearest stations. No one particularly likes change all that often and people are comfortable with the way things are, which is the immediate challenge facing the federation’s expansion goals.

Right now the Reach is our local neighborhood and we kind of need to decide which way we’re going on that one. If we want to try and conquer it, well ready up for war with a lot of crazy lunatics. If we want to immerse ourselves within it, we should send a representative to Elasyn and figure out how to be better neighbors. The highway and friendship projects aren’t exactly off the table in either case, it’s just a matter of what approach we want to take. Though ignoring the repeated advice everyone in the Reach has given us and just doing it anyways is liable to cause a conflict eventually.

Though one station along the route was a little more interested in the idea than the general trends. They were particularly interested in a few points. One, vittles. People like food as it were. The second being our manufacturing and securing reliable trade deals that might help them provide a stable market. Apparently the station has dreams of being a bigger trading hub than just fuel and safe docking. The third one was Haleh and Faithrae’s involvement in these agreements. Which was a bit of an ‘uhhh’ point for our forward teams. Haleh is infamous throughout the Reach and Faithrae is a local power that the Reachers get along well with. There might be something to leverage there.

Also as requested last month, we set up some hydroponics to grow food stuff. If nothing else it is tradeable. Not the most energy efficient to do that on a ship like the cradle but ehhh we don’t have a fuel shortage I suppose. Not yet at least.

We’re at the point where Kennae’s last known destination is beyond the reach of our network to safely operate within. Past the Blaiken Dead Zone is further than our explorers have ever gone and successfully returned from. Except that one crew who made it all the way to Nelta albeit in the middle of a war. This is above the paygrade of the average explorers for VSEC let alone our agents at this point.

Also we acquired some VSEC contracts to enhance our manufacturing productivity and profits. Though we’re having to scale it up because VSEC goes through mechs faster than a kobold with a cheese wheel.

As for Kharla’s doll mechanism. It is highly suspected that it was being done by her bind to Rozanis and Rozanis was actually the one who knew the spells to do so. Coincidentally, we think he learned it from one of Kanika’s grimoires and Winter is currently on her way to the demon kingdom looking for that.

Also what do you mean expanding miners offices into Enphidia? There isn’t really anything here to mine and logistically they’re already managed by the actual Flotilla.

Stories of Lore 65

The Minnisógnir collective over Nekhul has begun construction though with some challenges given the quarantine nature of the place and the distance between it and any operable point of contact for shipping.

The Plate 5 expedition, now that the lockdown has lifted, has been able to recall Haleh and Siora to Diadem in order to get moving. They’re in the process of getting everyone together and have set out to try and invade the 5th plate to look for any clues as to the fleet that departed all those years ago.

Vynnoth has already worked in media this whole time so setting up broadcasting propaganda was pretty easy for her. Though she points out that if you intend to include her work in beaming it at Sol, then she has some security concerns. As things are right now she’s just a dragon doing her own thing, if she takes an active stance against Kanika then she might be in more serious trouble. Given the range of her lifespan, she has more time for that to bite her in the ass than most others do. Though she also points out that if you wanted to attract more dragons to the Federation, they are unlikely to care about the ideals so much as the opportunity for personal benefit. Dragons typically see themselves as above any society they inhabit, if anything they just kind of leech off of it these days. It’s hard to beat ‘supremacy and free shit’ that they get with the Hassani. So there are two major things she’d advise to aim at, though questions if you even want both of the major groups.

The metallics are the ones that tend to be most comfortable with humanoids and remaining in their humanoid form for long periods of time. If anything there is an ongoing cultural shift among the metallics over the last millennia because of this. If you want their attention, you actually want to get someone a bit more…fun..than Lancaster or yourself involved. They tend to be rather sociable and steel dragons in particular have been always known for hiding in human societies. There’s actually a fairly strong chance that of the five dragons Vynnoth knows about on Diadem that there could easily be several steel dragons lurking around that no one knows about. By and large the stereotype of metallics is that they don’t like being in charge of things themselves and prefer to just take it easy. Appealing to them would involve looking for opportunities for them to find a comfy place in an already established society. Case in point, Vynnoth is kind of just mooching off of Adelaide for entertainment and among dragons Adelaide is basically her territory. The more cities there are for them to infiltrate and set up shop in the better.

The chromatics are however more prone to desiring to use their true forms and also much more self interested. By generalization, they also like to be in charge. There is a reason the Hassani council is mostly chromatic. Also that Haleh, the most difficult one in the Federation who lives on her own at her Ruffian scrapyard paradise on the upper plates happens to be associated with red dragons despite Vynnoth’s point that she might be a whole other thing. Chromatics largely like hoards, power, and to constantly remind people that they’re the biggest thing in the area. Though Vynnoth points out the best way to get their attention might have a mutual benefit. Chromatics are much more fiercely territorial, and the Federation has a lot of unused land at the moment compared to Sol. Offering to “invest” in them as territorial governors has some merit since they are liable to also help solve one of Diadem’s bigger issues with the machine wars on the plate borders. For all of Haleh’s problems, she and her ruffians have an abnormally high kill count on the machines. Mostly because they keep building weird junk out of the scraps but that was sort of Vynnoth’s point. Haleh is especially unruly, but her chromatic brethren are just as liable to set up their own cozy little territory and murder machines for you to help with that front line.

However in both cases, usually individual appeals would have to be taken. The larger format of just throwing a dart at the wall and hoping to pick some up would be a little difficult. Particularly when competing with the Hassani who gave practically every adult dragon their own city full of people to rule over and tells them they’re special every day. On that topic, Vynnoth noted that you might want to befriend a blue dragon just for dealing with the machines of Diadem. They are the best flyers which Lancaster seems to like, and they are electrical which means they’ll be comfy dealing with the robot horde. A black dragon would probably be able to make a joke out of the machine army, but Vynnoth is aware that socially they are the hardest for the Federation to get along with. Vynnoth can at least look into the plans and see what might be done after getting an idea of what the Federation wants her to do with the whole campaign attempt as she is pretty sure she’d have to individually target specific dragons she knows are most liable to be swayed.

Koharrel has been negotiating with the Sugnam. She reports it hasn’t been hard to convince the new republic that the demons are probably bad news, but the other hemisphere is harder to convince. Apparently the demons promised them ships and technology in exchange for those land rights to help them boot up their own space faring government. While that isn’t a unique offer at this point in time, it is likely an endearing factor for them to listen to the demon perspective. That and demons are incredibly charismatic. However, as for the new Sugnam Republic, they’re fairly easy to convince about the benefits of the Federation. If nothing else its a better alternative than the deal with the Reachers they currently have. Though due to the distance between themselves and Caelkia or Diadem they have concerns about networking. If one of Robert’s portals were provided to them they would be interested in a short term membership to see how it works out.

Across the planet otherwise, Koharrel has noted that the new Sugnam Republic has been using the Tungsten Teeth rather aggressively on a vengeance kick. The old kingdoms have been practically toppled already. The mercenaries are a bit over-equipped and over-trained for this scenario as it turns out. They’ve already killed thousands as they razed cities to the ground on the new Sugnam Republic’s orders and conquered more territory for it. Koharrel reported meeting with that strange maybe-Revenant again. They had some points to bring up about giving them too much power too quickly. Which makes general sense given that the Revenants have always been known for being a little anti-authoritarian. Whether specifically or by coincidence.

Si-Yeon is currently away at the Minnis….minno…minnesota, hold on. Minnisógnir project over Nekhul. The New Age containment experiments are largely in the hands of Vasia. That aside, Vasia has news on that front. First off, the sleepy herb did not alleviate the problems inside the containment unit. Though they can’t be sure what happened in it. Irae might have failed to be able to administer it, or it might not have worked. In either case, Vasia is pretty sure the problem isn’t actually putting the subject to sleep. They must have slept by now. The problem is most likely that the subject still has their APT since no one can perceive them long enough to remove it from them. Secondarily, no one comes back out of the box. Irae reformed in Valjala as planned, but there is no way to know if it was by her own volition or not. Because if it were to be Sarrai in there, she might still have her armor and weapons. Other lab personnel have been less fortunate. Either they’re dead or they forgot the plan of how to get back out. Research still pending.

When you say to keep an eye out for suddenly powerful Finsor pandem practitioners, you meant security wise right? Because we did kind of recruit the last one. I’m not even sure today that Otto can be trusted in terms of security. Not because he’d side with the Demon Kingdom, he’s just…he’s a lot for city constables to handle. Idle hands are the demon’s plaything, and he has already been arrested twice. Once for public intoxication and indecency – which is the polite way of saying he was jerking off on a train. Which no one can understand why, because he has a succubus for a familiar. Who uses ol’ righty when you have your own personal sex demon that you can summon at will? Second time for getting into a bar fight. He won at least. I took the damages out of his paycheck.

Anyways, in keeping an eye on the rest of the Federation’s warlocks, there are actually a lot of them. Most are not unreasonably powerful, at least not suddenly. Keeping an eye on warlock shenanigans is actually kind of an ordeal. Demons have a habit of making deals with practically anyone and sometimes just throwing shit into the world to see what happens. Ten years ago there was the Panemperia event where twenty eight students all became warlocks seemingly over spring break and rapidly started causing problems because one of them found a grimoire and kept messing with it rather than report to faculty that they had acquired it. I think they sacrificed some student, who came back to life and took revenge on them. Said book is currently in the vaults now, but was just an example of how this can get out of hand so frequently and easily.

I’ll keep an ear to the ground to see if any seriously over the top problems show up, for now it’s still under ‘general problems for the knights’. It’s their day job while they aren’t deployed to deal with things the rest of security forces don’t really feel equipped to handle. These things happen a lot around Panemperia for obvious reasons.

In other finsor business around the Federation, Enphidia has seen an odd number of incidents. Lilli has been back and forth from there. She is our primary merch production for Diadome so it isn’t that unusual for her to be here. Though there has been no official advertising for it, word has gotten around that she is here. She specializes in taking people to her kingdom who would like an ‘anonymous emigration’ and the sudden rise in missing persons cases might be related. Though Faithrae reported that she’s not doing anything especially nefarious to accomplish this, just making the same offers as usual and in a city as large as Enphidia there are bound to be people liable to take it.

The Diadome marketing strategy has been employed, though around Eden in particular most people don’t remember the full details of it so it has served as both a detection method and just actual marketing to re-familiarize them with it. Though we haven’t seen any lingering effects from the amnesia monster.

Inya is on her way to visit that psionic species with some of the New Age researchers and a few Arcurans to see how things go. They’re along the southern side of the Reach so it’s a bit of a trip.

Quarantine has officially been lifted now after everything has been thoroughly checked through.

Hisashi has been in the process of setting up his asteroid lab as requested. He did agree that he would like to run some rather dangerous experiments and this would be a great opportunity after all.

With communications re-established and informational quarantine over, I’ve caught up with the Celestial order. Ankathi’s mad, as we could all expect. Though she might be mad enough to start a war with the Demon Kingdom. However, for the first time in awhile she is in a uniquely weak position. Without Kharla she cannot manifest anywhere near her full strength, which is bad for us if we need her abilities for anything soon but it also means that there is a lot less she could do to us as well. Such as destroying Valjala for example. So despite her frothing rage, the First Temple is sort of avoiding marching off to the demon realm because without her direct presence they’re pretty sure they couldn’t win that unless the Federation as a whole was in on it. Even then, that could  invoke another fight with the Hassani and we’re basically outgunned on that front.

Though if you wanted to poke the bear, now is your window of opportunity. Who knows how many centuries it could take for her to find another medium as powerful as Kharla. Well maybe a few decades if Vasia’s plans for the celestials pans out but you get the idea.

We’ve brought Ecureuil onto the team and I cannot tell if they understand the briefing I gave them or that face was just them being a smartass. I should have added more options to that face plate.

Also we got word from Adrienne who is up at the Zhulkite border with the hive worlds and can only send messages back every so often due to the distance. The first issue they’re dealing with is that since the Exerlus destroyed every outpost in the area, the containment has already been likely breached. Hive World contamination does tend to be a bit slow. This is a large scale process that can sometimes take thousands of years, though they don’t mind the help with setting the outposts back up and slowly scouring nearby worlds for signs of Hive World spores, critters, and other such issues. Like a cloud of space moths for example, they can take a long time to travel between stars on their own but once they get there…problems. So many problems. Diadem hasn’t seen as much impact from the space moths since Renjala put bubbles over the farm and a lot of Diadem’s ecosystem is self maintaining thanks to the Ika machines. Also because it’s been thousands of years, so they already had their impact. It is apparently why the bodies of water on the surface plates have fish.

This is simultaneously an opportunity to learn more about the Zhulkites. We met them awhile ago on the expedition across the galaxy that got cut short to go help with the Solian war. Though we are still learning more about them as we go. They were a super civilization when we met them, though the Exerlus conflict has reduced them to a fallen one now days. Though the damage hasn’t been as bad for them specifically as the others in the area. They have been able to traverse the galaxy by their own means for some while now, hence the last outpost we visited was just an asteroid floating through space. Re-establishing the outposts is less a matter of getting people into space and more of setting up sustainable locations and communications. This has been the main thing Adrienne has been helping them work on is finding materials to establish communications across the border so that they can actually keep track of incidents from the Hive Worlds.

Speaking of Adrienne, the build off will probably get bundles into similar cybernetic showcases. Really it’s just a great big tech marketing fair, though this is a valuable opportunity to collect survey data on modern voidforged and compatible bodies.

The Lancaster rehabilitation project  continues to be underway on our end. Vasia is still very curious as to why it wipes memories of the Blaiken. Apparently Walters has shipped Winter out across the galaxy to the Demon Kingdom to go hunting for a book, so she will be away during all of this. I believe she’s already managing to get herself into some degree of trouble over the matter. Which brings up that Winter has already been pursuing other ideas of how to fix Lancaster. As advisor I am to point out her plan to try and procure the artifact from Faithrae is already dangerous as that would be getting involved with Faithrae and Lilli, then making a trip to Elasyn. Which is a place we don’t go to very often all things considered despite it being the capital of the galactic sector we live in.

Si-Yeon is at work at Minnisógnir setting up observation. Though constructing five stations in essentially foreign territory is taking a bit of time. In the meantime with quarantine lifting we have so far not seen Diadem immediately collapse so hopefully that’s going well. Vasia reports experiments with the contained unit have been hard to discern what exactly happens inside of the box. Renjala recently sent Irae in there and she reformed in Valjala which was the plan, but with no memory of what happened inside. Also no one sent into the box to try out various methods has returned from the box or been retrieved from it thus far. To be fair the interior of that thing is a dimensional space like a bag of holding so there’s a bit more room than you would think.

The cruisers report that Lidar does seem to work decently well with a big enough version intended for scanning the planet.

As for the attempts to create an amnesia curing drug, so far this has always been a bit of an iffy territory. Ilex once was trying to mess with this stuff as well, but removing or resurfacing memories has always been a bit difficult. The only people known to have any method of doing so thus far have been the Blaiken and they do it by reconstructing your brain’s chemistry and physics, not really viable in this situation. Though it does raise the question of what happens physiologically to the victims of the Sixth Disaster. Does it unwrinkle their brains?

Suffice to say progress is slow if we’re making any at all. Obviously if anyone can make the amnesia or recall effect there will be a large scale interest in the matter though so it could be profitable.

The search for Souris has been in a bit of a stall due to the fact that we’re still building the main observation stations for Nekhul. Though no jet fighter has come screaming out of the atmosphere to make contact at least. Calculating his trajectory is definitely iffy since all information about the operation was lost. One thing Si-Yeon has noticed, is she also cannot find the mechs that should still be down there. Granted she has no ability to tell where the landing would have taken place and she is doing this all with a telescope while also managing the station. Though there is a distinct lack of a battlefield filled with mech scraps.

Though her casual observations led to a report of things moving on the surface but from a top down angle it is a little hard to get any details. One of the things her stations are being commissioned to include is more advanced optical observation platforms to further this research. Hopefully with a great stabilizing device, since keeping an eye on a specific point via telescope aboard a cruiser is a bit of a bumpy affair.

We could start growing stuff on the cradle, though I don’t think it will have the effect you’re hoping for in regards to the food mafia. One of the primary reasons that exists is because of the galactic famine. Even if it has been over two decades since the series of disasters throughout the galaxy that led to the famine, it is still a lingering threat. Especially since Rahlken keeps abducting productive locations and Haleh burns farms down during her raids as well, along with piracy. A thousand factors all summarize up to being ‘food is big business’. Diadem is one of the few places that is relatively well fed thanks to the surface plates, but selling it to other Reach stations is incredibly profitable. If you want to make a dent in the overall economics of agriculture in the Reach network, we need to upscale the plate farming on Diadem by a hundred fold. Then replace everyone working on them with slave labor, golems, or automation in order to make it extremely unprofitable for anyone to compete with Vittles. Then we will see the Adelaide overlords get richer and more powerful as a result while fewer opportunities for individual enterprise are available to less economically advantaged types.

One of the issues with all of these logistics is because food is big business, it’s also a great target for piracy. Which affects a lot of the rather high costs since security is a necessity. VSEC has deployed the VIPER team to help alleviate it but there’s another element to consider. A lot of people in the ‘food mafias’ overall are specifically those that do not want to join VSEC because of the constant threat that they get deployed to fight killer robots and pirates almost constantly. Increase food production, you get a security shortage next. Increase security, you get a black hole of tax spending and probably spawn gang wars as people try to get in on Faithrae’s cornerstone markets. It’s a never ending chase for a utopia one step at a time but growing hydroponics on the Iron Cradle isn’t going to put a dent in this. The market forces that enable tomato gangsters is the Reach Network in particular.

The idea of having Ankathi sever Kaylen’s bind has turned into a conference with Ankathi about the realities of attempting that. Mixed in with her still being quite pissed off about the Euron incident that took Kharla. Though that is Renjala’s problem for now. We’re just concerned about Kaylen here at the office.

The problem being that severing a bind between two people without either party being involved is extremely difficult. For perspective, if anyone knew how to do it then surely Reika would have been able to escape Barachiel without needing him to die. Though it is correct to assume the one person who might know how would be at least someone in the Astral Order. With Ankathi currently missing her medium and no sufficiently strong enough one’s available, she can’t do it for us. The other problem being, even she can’t really do it. It isn’t just a magic ritual. There are only three ways to separate a bind with neither participant being willing. The first is the Astral Wilds combined with sheer distance, and the second is an AMZ. Both are only temporary measures though. The third is to kill one of the two, with some weird loopholes for ‘near death’ scenarios. Like when Kharla turned Reika into a doll and that cut her off from Ankathi permanently. Though Renjala using his phylactery doesn’t seem to count given how often he’s used that one.

The search for the elusive Kennae continues. What is strange is that it is easy to find places he has been, as he leaves quite an impression. Yet no one can figure out where he’s gone. According to the Playatis, they did actually meet him though had no idea he was significant in any way. Last they saw, he was traveling across the dead zone to the eastern side of the galaxy. They are judging this entirely based on departure records and if he turned left at any point, then they have no clue.

We got the process of setting up Forgehall underway. Faithrae asked if you’ll be securing VSEC’s military contracts with that one since it would be a good use of  your connections to get it some promising business.

Also you do kind of look like a cop sir. At least an agent. We all dress too generically formal around here except the field agents who all look like pirates instead. Half of them are pirates I suppose.

As for asking around about Pandem, you should try asking Renjala. This is his area of expertise after all.

Stories of Lore 64

Yes Admiral Yorikane was also surprised at how quickly and frequently they had to take over things because Lancaster got herself into trouble. Welcome to the command chair Walters, expect to be here more than you would think.

Aryn put together another few candidates to replace Sarrai.

We got in contact with Scholar Zaikies over at Playatis to get a quick summary of the Ika’s 6 disasters people know of. Though these all occurred over sixteen thousand years ago so many don’t know or care about it anymore, scholars like Zaikies find it to be an interesting tidbit of galactic history. Though these are considered to be the six big ‘oopsies’ they made that resulted in their own downfall and presumed extinction.

The first and most well known is the Terlim. Chronologically they were not the first one they made but they are the most famous. Automated lifeless machines designed to be military robots. Really it all started with an automated turret that had the ability to build more of itself and somehow it spiraled out of control from there. Giving rise to a  machine that almost destroyed the galaxy in Zonaricht. They were self replicating and managed to spread through several systems before the Exerlus got involved. By then it was too late.

The second is technically missing. Zaikies knows there are six and all of his sources indicate the others are third and so on but perhaps due to the sixth one there is no real record of the second. At least not that Zaikies has found, there is just a strangely missing entry which is referred to without context as to what it was.

The third was something the Ika thought to label as ‘The Great Freight’ and it was intended to be a colonizing project that would make it easier to move large quantities of things to new worlds in need of supplies and reconstructed structures. Everyone else called it the ‘Star Eater’. Similar to a lot of their technology, it didn’t need a pilot. Instead using the machine spirits similar to the Diadem guardians, though it was such a vast project that they needed thousands of those spirits to operate the thing. It went insane and started eating solar systems. Including their own. It would then try to ‘colonize’ places by dumping those stars into other spots around the galaxy. Which would destroy another solar system or three in the process. It turns out smashing two stars and several planets into each other is not ‘twice as nice’ and instead just destroys everything. It was finally stopped by the Ika building a super weapon of such power that they could have fired it into neighboring stars and destroyed them. They only stopped it after, in Zaikies words, ‘perhaps nine dozen populated systems’ were destroyed.

Which leads to the fourth big whoopsie. This one is a little more close to home. That one layer inside of Diadem that we assessed somehow used Diadem’s star as a gun, that’s exactly what it does. The first one was the one they built to stop their third problem. The Diadem weapon was built to be a bigger more powerful version of that weapon. Theoretically if it fires, it destroys the star immediately and Diadem was supposed to be able to then go pick up a new one. This is part of why the plates shift, there is another sub system of Diadem that was made to accommodate taking over other stars as it needed to. The plates are one piece of that overall design. More importantly, the weapon drew the attention of the Jesai. Diadem was once fully populated. If you do the math you start to realize just how many people disappeared in order to leave the ring empty. The weapon itself wasn’t the disaster, the loss of trillions was however. With the loss of the alliance’s capital, the economic productivity of the ringworld, and several other factors that is difficult to even imagine – they started to fall apart while still being actively hunted down by the Terlim.

Number five was they opened a rift to Rixa that they kept open for a few centuries in order to explore other planes, but also to get Silnian assistance with fighting the Terlim. You will notice their homeworld is in what are now the hive worlds and are overrun with silnian descended organisms. While it was a necessity at the time to combat the Terlim, the long term effects destroyed hundreds of smaller civilizations in that section of the galaxy as they were overtaken. The problems are again very difficult to summarize into a simple explanation as it took different effects on thousands of worlds. It was an unimaginable level of chaos in what was their home region. Some planets were overrun by aggressive flora that destroyed infrastructure until nothing remained, others had problems that I can only describe as ‘zombie ghoul apocalypses’ and some worlds just had their inhabitants eaten alive by ravenous tiny insects. Some worlds survived and continued to evolve alongside these events, such as the Exny. The hive worlds were always a consistent place of notably extreme bio-diversity. Though seventeen thousand years ago, the Ika made the problem so much worse and their home systems were consumed by it.

Number Six we don’t talk about.

The Exerlus propose, perhaps as a joke it is hard to tell with Echo Prime what is a joke and what isn’t, that the seventh disaster was the creation of Mother and what would become the modern Blaiken. Normally that would just be a ‘oh thats a thing’ but we recently discovered thanks to Jiyan that the hyper-isolated empire of the Blaiken is actually concealing its true size and scale within the Warrens. They are also technologically one of the most advanced civilizations in the galaxy, halfway between everyone else like Nelta and the Exerlus. There is a chance that a war with them could be as bad as a war with the Terlim.

Kaylen has been sent to the the prison at Cayetano and is pretty much just being kept in stasis for the moment via extremely liberal use of tranquilizers due to a general fear that both zankists and elves are somewhat resistant to sedatives. Might kill her, might not, we’ll see.

Eleazor reported back that the Exerlus aren’t terribly familiar with mana ruptures or dealing with them. Since they are machines this isn’t really a problem that they ever experience. They have the data on the subject but procedures intended for use on solians are lacking. Most of what they have is that the jesai have a ritual for this but they’re not sure how well it works on solians. The ritual has been forwarded and it took all of thirty minutes for an arcane engineer to notice it would cause organic solians to explode. The ritual would be more suitable for something like arcurans or dragons who are more mana based. It is a step towards our own research into the matter though.

Scout cruisers went back to Nekhul to begin investigating the possibility of construction, escorted by Si-Yeon’s personal lab cruiser. Apparently she preferred six soldiers that had been her most direct assistants during the previous incident since they had already been exposed and didn’t have as much to lose. One thing they found was that jamming communications gave it a medium to jump through and it got onto the cruiser with the jamming equipment. Si-Yeon has made a note that it doesn’t actually need it to be in the spirit of communication, it transfers as psionic phenomena. Which is what the jammers use to block comms, which resulted in Disaster Six being able to transfer itself through it. Overwhelming it with signal garbage just lets it leap through that too.

So she made a note that the observation stations shouldn’t bother trying that one. Though due to the range limitations of the phenomenon, the only way it gets into orbit is if it finds something to travel through. Communications obviously being its preferred method. However, it also can go through scanning data. Attempts to scan the planet allowed it to ride the returning signal of the scanners, resulting in another problem on the test cruisers. This has led Si Yeon to the theory that the barely operable planetary shield around Nekhul might have been maintained by something a long time ago to stop it from getting out rather than to stop orbital bombardment from getting in.

Though it does not transfer itself through typical light. Si Yeon is still building a fiber optic test to stress that theory, but so far she has been able to observe Nekhul with an old fashioned telescope without incident. She was only doing it for an experiment and surveying the planet with such a method would take forever, so all she reported was ‘there are a lot of trees’.

She has also commissioned Steamworks to build the station as if it were being run by pandem corrupted executives. Though they have never done that before so they’re seeing how much they can do to with the request. There has been no sign of Souris in the meantime. At least not that anyone wrote down. Construction is underway with Si-Yeon’s guidelines that are being developed with cruiser experiments as they go.

In regards to the Utewa, Walters let them know he’ll be back.

Haleh took on the expedition to Plate 5 rather than deal with the media. Though is somewhat irritated that she was asked to do one thing out in the reach and suddenly is being asked to do something else now. Vynnoth still isn’t sure if you wanted her to do anything in particular for PR or just start an ad campaign.

The ruffians asked if Diadem is still in lockdown or not before they bother making the return trip. Technically it is and we could lift it if we’re confident that nothing is going to get here from Eden.

Koharrel is working with establishing the Sugnam Republic as requested, though it is definitely taking time to get off the ground. Bureaucracy moves slowly when everyone uses crab claws. The Tungsten Teeth were an easier matter though, they’ll take the paycheck. As per the Sugnam Republic’s orders they assaulted one of the major cities of the old kingdoms recently.

Quylla pointed out she doesn’t have anything to do with Lord Hrath and isn’t sure why she’s being contacted about this. Most of her work is within the Demon Kingdom and she lives in Vloz’Khress territory. The demons aren’t really interested in getting involved in a liberation war, stating they’d rather just remain neutral and work things out for themselves with the Sugnam. Though they promised that if the pirate mining operations were to spread to the hemisphere they’re setting up in that they’ll deal with them accordingly. Koharrel is pretty sure they’re concealing the fact that the demons are probably going to get even better land usage rights than you would have given them that might be outright exploitative. So they would rather not be involved with either us or the pirates since they’d be able to make more for themselves by minding their own business. She reached this conclusion because the demons have been keeping an eye on any communications going on within there sphere of influence and those over at the new republic side of things

As for the Grimoire, Lord Hrath pointed out that he can’t do much for us on that front. While he knows of various assets like that, he has no way to verify which ones were made by Kanika specifically as she probably has a tendency to not put her name on them. However, if Rozanis was in fact in possession of one as we assume then he knows that all of Rozanis’ assets are now under the control of House Vloz’Khress and that specific territory is now under the domain of Lord Ecsanul who was recently propped up as a new demon lord to help manage Vloz’Khress control of the territories they once had. Though before all of that occurred, lesser demons looted the place after the Federation assault left Rozanis’ fortress in ruins. A grimoire would be pretty obviously valuable, though Hrath has never seen it he would assume that Kanika isn’t one to make hers look like a personal diary. If it was bound in leather, had fancy runes on it, and all the trimmings then someone definitely would have wanted to loot it. He’d recommend looking into starting to track it down within the neighboring territories that were unaffected by the war. Specifically the lower society where looters would have tried to fence the thing. That or find some demonic lich in a back alley, that would be a pretty obvious giveaway too.

Through a series of manually handed off reports that got to my office here at New Jamalia, we’ve been informed of what Euron was up to out here. Apparently he was plotting to assault the First Temple that Ankathi currently has control over. He was scouting us, apparently this was all a rather convoluted plot to get Kharla back from Ankathi. I have here Wolum’s notes that they did seem particularly invested in that woman for some reason.

The comms and pandem lockdown proved a perfect opportunity for them and they improvised to go immediately. So I also have a note here that says Ankathi is being bitchier than usual lately but I told the messenger we have a comms lockdown due to 6ix and so I can’t take her calls directly. That’s a problem for future us.

Haziel provided a ‘forbidden fae herb’ to New Age to create a tranquilizer for Eden. It took a fleet of freighters with thousands of tons of the stuff. Steamworks managed to break every crystal in Eden City and use good old engineering to keep the critical systems afloat long enough to sedate everyone for a few hours to knock it out. We’re still cleaning through everything to make sure its safe to lift quarantine, but things are looking good. Now we’re also just doing bulk shipments from the Tyne computer company to put all the systems back together. At least this thing is relatively easy to remove as long as someone is actively trying to do so. It also isn’t very dangerous unless it reaches Diadem. Though New Age did warn that this was all the immature offspring of the real one. It replicates itself and its smaller ones grow over time. They have no reason to be sure of it but there is a chance the true original ‘body’ on Nekhul is much stronger and more dangerous.

This is kind of all just wild speculation but in matters of this thing, paranoid levels of caution seem to be the route Si Yeon is taking. Her notes from the incident indicate that it was indeed growing stronger over time, if not as it got its psionic calories from eating the memories it was most interested in. Which implies the one in the containment unit is already much more difficult to deal with since it is attached to something it constantly feeds on. There is also a theory of Si-Yeon’s that the original ‘big one’ didn’t leave Nekhul aboard anyone for what has to be a reason. Leading to the hypothesis that it is either attached to something more valuable to it, or that because it was designed as a weapon there is a method of controlling it on Nekhul.

Hisashi’s work is still being kind of stalled since he was working out of Eden City and the lockdowns have impacted his ability to research, get parts, and open pandem communications to the Astral Wilds which while under infection might be a teeeeerrrible idea.

I have commissioned our finest voidforged artist in section three of the cradle to come up with posters for you. Our best market researchers have found that while solians respond most to implied fleshy nudity, voidforged actually respond more to overly intricate compositions of machinery. A natural curiosity for ‘what the hell is that pipe there even for’. So I had a blacksmith design an overly complicated lacey lingerie set for you made entirely out of copper wire coiling that we could use for the posters. Thus attracting the attention of both potential audiences! Then we just stick a weapon in your hand to snag the arcurans too. Research data indicates that no one actually cares whether or not the outfit is practical or comfortable, also neither are concerns for us. I am a marketing genius. Also it’s not fascism, its… uhh what do the democrats call it… campaigning!

Anyways, strict comms blackout is still being maintained for Diadem and the Cradle to prevent any chances of infection. With people having to fly halfway here, space walk to a station, sleep there, then space walk to another ship, then fly the rest of the way here. I have in the meantime found out how to put a voidforged to sleep at least and was able to get Malgier out of containment. It involves a lot of electricity.

No need to worry about scouting that elf engineer, I have already had Nah Division compile me a detailed profile on them. I have their name, address, banking information, and I put a bug on their outgoing comms to keep an eye on what designs they keep posting to the aethernet. If they want to challenge me to a build off, I’ll be ready. Apparently they’re a former Engineer for Siwa Industries. They might have been a part of our earliest prototypes from back in the day. Their designs are pointless, featuring form over function. This loser keeps trying to make Voidforged designs that are socially appealing, it looks like bad fanart of a mecha elf. They don’t put nearly enough swords or laser guns on anything. Though apparently they have attracted the attention of some wayward voidforged on Diadem with their paint and body shop. I am obligated to invite them to a demo that me and Adrienne intend to conduct for market research. So I can publicly crush them.

Speaking of Adrienne, she’s probably at the zhulkite outpost by now but due to quarantine and the fact that she is very far away, no idea what she’s actually doing out there. Probably something dumb, like working with the zhulkites to make easily modifiable outposts.

As for the Nekhul incident’s survivors, well we already had them all in therapy so psyche evaluations were already ready to go upon request. Most of them have no knowledge that they survived something apparently horrible and seem irritable at the constant probing and quarantine measures since they have no understanding what they are for. They also don’t remember having their APT’s removed and this has made them more irritable since they are used to having the convenience and communication that it provides. It doesn’t help that New Age is a particularly vague but menacing agency, so answering questions to their subjects is not their strongest area. It is unique for how dangerous the situation was that no one appears to be affected by it. That is probably how it got so out of control all those years ago, if no one cares then no one tries to stop it.

Deniau is working on the concept of drugs that help you retain memories though that’s never really been done before. So we’re on the trial and error phase, the problem is that the only way to get new subjects to test the idea on would be people who have been infected by the Sixth Disaster.

Chevalier agreed to go and help with rehabilitating Lancaster. Though you were correct, she can’t remember a lot of the details of raising Winter. Actually it’s worse then that, she couldn’t remember Winter’s name. She just remembered she had a daughter of some sort and recognized a picture of Winter. However she has no recollection of their name or more importantly, who the ‘father’ was. Which lead to another investigation by Si-Yeon. Lancaster doesn’t remember the Blaiken prison or meeting Mother either. We hadn’t thought to check on that one. It appears the Sixth Disaster removes memories of the Blaiken as well.

We know both the Ika and the Kanis were in the same alliance together and both lived on Diadem. The Kanis being the species and Blaiken being the nation that eventually took political power. With their offshoot being Mother who is now out with the Blaiken 2.0. So it isn’t unreasonable that the weaponized amnesia also was meant to protect the Kanis. There might be other members of the old alliance that no one can remember for similar reasons. The entire Reach and Hive Worlds were a part of a super massive alliance of worlds back then so there were bound to be more than just the two species running things back then. This was after all a military weapon gone wrong, it is also very likely that it removes memories of the Terlim. Which likely contributed to the Terlim war getting so out of hand.

As for the Ika ability to control voidforged, they can’t actually even control their own machines. They just have the ability to ‘ask for a favor’ via intrinsic communication and it doesn’t work with voidforged at all. Apparently the qualification is that it has to be a machine without essentia in order for them to speak to the spirit of the machine. Otherwise the machine’s spirit can just speak for itself verbally and there is no need for any of this. They can control a voidforged by asking politely though, which they say is about the same thing.

Also new candidates to replace Souris are available.

Right now we have Kaylen kept in a coma over at Moncayo, though there is a concern that if she’s missing for too long that the Hydra will know how to summon her even while she’s unconscious. That or they’ll figure out we have her eventually.

Allison has departed from Kuhas to make her way to Moncayo, though with the portal network under quarantine she can’t take the shortcut through Diadem and is instead forced to travel the entire length of the Reach to get there. Which will take her some time, though she doesn’t mind too much since at this point she’s pretty good at navigating the Reach. After the last thirty years of living on Kuhas she’s more Reacher than Federation.

Rampart isn’t quite in range to figure out the exact details of what Euron’s goons are transporting. They mostly work out of Kuhas at the furthest north point of the Reach and Euron’s transportation is going south rather quickly. It is most likely to be someone related to the Reach though rather than some sort of virus. That is more of a Jaal’Darya thing anyways.

No sign of Kennae at Cayetano, it is likely that if he was there we would have known if he passed through previously. They’re headed to visit the Playatis next.

As for the Enphidia underworld, Faithrae could be considered to ‘own’ all of it even if independent gangs will appear now and then. Gangs form when a group feels a need to rely on eachother more than the society they inhabit, so there is only so much you can do to stop them from forming in various neighborhoods out of what they feel is a necessity. Though these smaller gangs aren’t quite the same as Faithrae or Selona style enterprises which deliberately specialize in illegal activity. Usually these gangs will be small time thieves and fencers that work together for example. Due to how few things are actually illegal in the Federation, there isn’t much for smaller gangs to do in the meantime. The slave trade is not really something small time street gangsters can get into, and they usually aren’t interested in probing the security of VSEC to become smugglers.

The most common things small time gangs are doing are trying to take over structures in Diadem that remain abandoned in the endless city rings. Often using such structures in the pursuit of profit or as a place to run some aspect of an otherwise legitimate business to avoid things like inspections or taxes. Some are even trying to start their own towns for various economic reasons that led them to thinking that would be a better idea than trying to get a regular job. Though the whole reason that’s illegal is less to do with Lancaster wanting to own all the things and more to do with the killer robots that might kill people if they wander too far from the safe areas. Growing your own food to make it cheaper isn’t illegal but is apparently a gangster activity these days due to the margins on it. Half of all gang wars in Enphidia that have nothing to do with Faithrae are people fighting over grow houses that just grow tomatoes in the Squats. Corporate criminals in Adelaide are much more focused on taxes and ordnances that help them make a profit rather than doing anything legitimately dangerous. So Faithrae doesn’t necessarily own all of it, but she owns all of the more hardcore elements of it. Assassination, the slave trade, extreme gang violence, and the smuggling networks are all in her domain. Most people who would be considered criminals in Adelaide or Enphidia don’t touch the kinds of businesses that Faithrae will, and a lot of her work is actually based in the larger Reach network using Enphidia as a base of operations.

All the small time or white collar criminals generally fear Faithrae because she operates the businesses that get into the realm of Selona or Solvang style activity. Where it is profitable to have a large number of really dangerous people on staff at all times. She also keeps our pirate sub-company with the Nomad flotilla busy. Usually preying on other organizations in the Reach outside of the Federation.

As for the kidnapping news back on Thenica, people have indeed noticed that Kaylen went missing. In her place another of the councilors has taken over but most regular people aren’t sure if Kaylen died, was taken by someone else, or if she pissed off her own boss in the Hassani and they made her disappear. For all they know she’s on a vacation retreat with a beholder as a harem slave just to entertain monsters. Due to her status as the most humiliated mortal in the Hassani Empire, its kind of hard to tell if she was taken, killed, disposed, or is being subjected to even more of the usual.

Also I suppose its a bit late, but now that we can work backwards from major events we figured out what Euron was doing here at Diadem. Apparently this was all a plan to scout the pantheon of the Astral Order because they were planning to go get Kharla back from Ankathi. Lilli did mention to Renjala many years ago that the Demon King himself has an interest in Kharla as it were. It is likely that Euron knew it would be good for his career to deliver Kharla back to the Demon King. Also that the plan they were concocting had to go much quicker than they expected since our lockdowns inadvertently stranded the First Temple from any assistance for long enough for the Demon Lords to invade it. While they might not have been able to take on Ankathi directly, they knew that Ankathi had bitten off more than she could chew with Kharla. Who has managed to dominate seven demon lords with her pandem abilities before, the only reason no one noticed she could do it was because they drove her insane so she wouldn’t use that power to exert her authority over them. Even Ankathi couldn’t keep control over Kharla if Kharla were to actively resist. Making it seem as if Ankathi had stabbed one of Kharla’s children was a way to wake up the crazy bitch enough to resist Ankathi’s control.

Stories of Lore 63

The Nekhul expedition was short but has already had vast ramifications. Due to Renjala and Eerihild’s binds in particular, the ‘thing’ known as the Sixth Disaster of the Ika got loose into the Evershar colony, Eden, Enohas, Mokihi, and afflicted Yasrena as well. While you were away, Director Hex took over to declare martial law after she was warned by a New Age researcher about the ongoing development.

Over half of the expedition was lost and almost every mech is gone. According to investigation by New Age, who are in possession of the defunct carriers now, the few mechs remaining show heavy damage and many of the pilots were found to be among the survivors. Implying that for some reason hundreds of mechs were abandoned on the surface of Nekhul and never returned to the carriers. We do not know if their pilots abandoned them to take shuttles back up for immediate retreat, if the mechs were damaged too greatly to continue operation, or if something else happened.

Unfortunately, due to the radiation hazard all equipment went through thorough decontamination upon returning to the carriers which also destroyed a lot of what could have been used as evidence to what might have happened down there. All sensor, video, and comm logs were destroyed in an attempt to save those remaining aboard from the memory destroying parasite.

Diadem Apparel and Lancaster Reserve have been established as requested.

Vittles doesn’t have much of a stockpile, it is one of your largest assets and has made a significant dent in the famines of the Reach but it doesn’t tend to store extras long term as the supply of food is still under the demand generally speaking. Not to mention the Vessians who live on Diadem take a lot to feed and you have a habit of sending food all over the place so it never piles up for long.

As it turns out, asking the Ruffians and Haleh to act as security has resulted in some unintended consequences. While they are protecting food shipments, they are accusing people of theft every time they get bored. Haleh is deliberately hunting vessians in the north whether or not she can prove they are the problematic targets. She “recruits” them to join her ruffians. They’re getting stronger as a result now that she has several vessian officers she has been personally training to serve her. If they refuse then she murders them on the spot just to show off that she is in fact stronger than vessians. Spreading her dragon supremacy to other Reachers. So a great number of food shipments are safer now and the vessian hunters are being either pushed into the hive worlds or back south to get away from Haleh intentionally hunting them for sport.

VIPER and the Caelkians are a bit more chill and helping control the pirates in the north as intended. Though the Caelkians have been conveniently forgetting to do their paperwork in order to smuggle vessians south without Haleh finding out about it.

Speaking of Rahlken, the latest RBN update noted he was moving north. We also know that he goes from station to station selling what he can along the major path of the Reach. There is a series of stations along what can be thought of as a major highway that he goes along. Given that he is almost always being tracked, we could send a team to the stations along his path to see what he is selling. He will often offload huge amounts of ‘pristine salvage’ at one of a few key stations on the interstellar highway and individual merchants will pick through the spoils and divide it up for distribution. It is likely this most recent offload occurred at a huge station a bit south of Elasyn.

As for increasing the Ring section’s defenses, we can try building more outposts and turrets. Seven layers, two sides, giant ring’s width, it’s a lot of ground. The enemy is adaptive as well, we have to adapt to their adaptations that were counters to our adaptations to their adaptations in the first place. That being said, despite the threat level of these machines the attacks have been less prominent lately. They tend to be a bit lazier when we don’t have any deep expeditions for awhile, but when they launch another assault it is often quite severe. Currently the Diadem guard rely on shuttles to travel the width of the lines and scan for problems as best they can with the outposts providing long range turret fire from raised positions whenever anything is found. There are also independent hunters who are not enlisted with the guard but we pay them a bounty for what they bring down. Basically mercenaries who specialize in hunting along the plate lines. Seventy percent of these mercenaries are arcurans who hunt the bounties to afford their power armor some day.

Beyond additional outposts and arms, there isn’t much we have been able to do to more permanently resolve the situation. We tried to build fields that repel the machines, they adapted to it within two months. There are already mine fields out there, and they figured out how to spot those too. Right now we’re in an arms race to deal with the sneakier productions they’ve been sending that go around the outposts and try to reach the farm plates. Though the large protective domes Renjala constructed kept them out of the food  supply and the improvised militia of vessians were able to deal with them.

In regards to your question about the Evershar colony, the insectoids previously mentioned are just wild creatures. They chose that planet deliberately for its lack of intelligent competition.

In regards to their relics, Utewa generally refuses to sell or trade them. They get a lot of offers from Reachers at times, but the vaults they keep are to preserve the historical and research values of their collection. Reachers can be a little rough on any archeologically relevant artifacts and prone to trading away priceless items for a pack of cigarettes only for it to wind up on some ship dash for twenty years until the ship gets blown up. Utewa is one of the few planets in the reach that can really hope to hold onto anything for any foreseeable length of time due to their planet’s ability to just leave the plane at will. Though given that it they might be in possession of an Ika device that they want back, they are open to considering a trade.

Specifically they want one of Kanika’s grimoires she scattered across Thenica’s history. The Lakaaj are a known threat in the eastern galaxy and the Reach doesn’t have much in terms of necrocarnate research to rival that problem. It has come to their attention that Sol is home to one of the most talented necrocarnates in the galaxy, and she wrote a ton of books then just left them laying around for people to discover. They want some of these to further their research. Walters had haggled them down from one of Ankathi’s books. She only ever made one and Renjala has it locked up annnd probably wouldn’t want to trade it off for a variety of reasons.

I have pre-emptively looked into some options for that. Obviously we can’t ask Kanika herself as she might stab the messenger. However, those books are not particularly important or well protected by her. We know that Rozanis had one and it is likely now in the possession of Sayane. We could also try to get a demon to look into acquiring one for us since they would be under less suspicion from the Hassani for asking around. Faithrae says she knows how to get one, though isn’t sharing where it is or how she would get it. It is also likely there are a few scattered about the undead nations of Necrosi. Jhaeros also likely had one though we have no idea where to find him. That’s all I have at the moment.

Also Walters has been talking with Utewa a lot lately and they mentioned something related to a whole other problem we’ve been having. They actually know that the Ika expedition to leave the galaxy occurred from what we’ve labeled as plate section 5 of Diadem. There might be information, particularly logs of their departure, there that we could use to calculate which direction we should be looking.

As for Gunhild I’ve compiled a list of options I can find in my database. In terms of cybernetics, we would need Daiheb’s help. Selona’s are of good quality and his androids are totally machine, but Daiheb is the only one who has the ability to transplant an organic person’s consciousness into a totally machine body. If you crack open Aryn’s skull there isn’t an elf brain in there anymore. The Ika Pods could attempt to restore more of Gunhild’s organic body parts but that might actually be worse for her than letting her remain cybernetic. Her complaints that it hurts to move her cybernetics will be just as bad once she’s in an old woman’s body. Though Faithrae just recently acquired Hyeon and her artifact while everyone else was too busy to hunt her down. The Exerlus have the technology to make someone an exerlus, as they demonstrated in the process of restoring Echo Prime. However they are unlikely to do this for a random human soldier. Blaiken have the technology to fully reverse the process of aging. Pandem binds can extend lifespans as well though would require the recipient to be proficient in pandem magic. Renjala knows how to make a lich, not the most enviable fate for some though. Demons can convert other sapients into demons somehow with their contracts as we heard from Lilli some while ago. Demons are naturally much longer lived than humans. Koura parasites might also be able to give Gunhild a new body specifically under the conditions that were used to create Si-Yeon. Preacher said he would be down to try some ideas, Hex reported that Preacher has no credibility to attempt this but he did offer to try and turn Gunhild into a voidforged core. He has no idea how to do this but he is excited at the idea of trying. Then finally there is throwing her into Larazja’s ichor and hoping for the best. Technically my database also contains the information that Kanika specializes in this though obviously won’t help us.

Koharrel and the fleet support have been looking into the Sugnam situation. The Caelkians have agreed to send someone if you want them to meet with them over there. The Sugnam Government is actually several smaller kingdoms with varying opinions on the matter based on their proximity to the fuel mining operations. Koharrel just appears to have walked into the one nearby first. There are definitely peasants who would very much like a couple of rulers removed and the slavers chased off to which end they’re very cooperative with Federation ideals. Especially the slaves. We had Koharrel look into things regarding the demon presence in particular. As far as she can tell they’re mostly interested in the fuel resources and see an opportunity to expand business into the area. Though they’re a lot less interested in the natives, as various demons would be able to import their own labor forces that apparently have expanded greatly in the last twenty five years. Half the reason they’ve been so prevalent in the Reach lately is that they now have more of a labor force than they really know what to do with and need to start on some projects.

There is some tension between the demons and the local mining operation though they’re on opposite sides of the planet for now to stay out of each other’s way. The Tungsten Teeth have arrived and are shopping around for contracts between our fleet, the slavers, the demons, and Sugnam themselves whose small nations can pay in the very fuel everyone is here to get. The situation is slow to develop since the Sugnam themselves aren’t particularly modern or efficient, the demons are debating if its worth the effort while our fleet is there, the Tungsten Teeth are checking for bids, and the slavers are in disarray because of everything else that was mentioned. Essentially the rogue slaving miners have no shot at keeping in this race unless they win the bidding war for the Tungsten Teeth’s assistance though they don’t seem to have full awareness of the status of the situation.

Koharrel has initiated talks with the demon’s Lord Hrath, who is a somewhat minor player looking to get his businesses going to maybe alter his current standing. Not as big of a deal as Euron, Lilli, or Asmodan for example. More like a Rozanis at best. Hrath is really just looking for something to work on for the time being and is negotiating land usage rights with the Sugnam in a calm and orderly fashion in the other hemisphere. Though Eerihild might have some thoughts on that given what happened to her people’s lands in Alnae, and now nefariously talented demons are with bureaucracy and contracts.

Vynnoth doesn’t mind working with the Federation for PR reasons though isn’t sure what exactly that entails. Though she points out that Haleh is kind of the dragon’s matriarchal figure here on Diadem. While dragons tend to exist in solitude from one another, it would be a potentially risky idea to push draconic relations for the Federation without looping Haleh into them. It would be a little disrespectful and Haleh is a little dangerous to be on the wrong side of. Though Vynnoth is pretty sure if you ask Haleh directly she will get bored and wander off immediately, but at least won’t be mad about it later.

As for the desire to construct an AMZ weapon, first step is finding someone who knows how to even cast the spell. Nah division reports that they know of a Revenant who can do it but not many others. The spell is particularly rare, even archwizards of the modern era will rarely know how to do it or where to find out how it works. This has led to a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories as to why its so hard to find people who know anything in particular about it. Though given that it is rare throughout the galaxy, it is likely that it is just really difficult. After extensive research, everything we have leads to long dead wizards. So we can go find that Revenant, or we can ask Yasrena to trade secrets.

I’ve been reading up on Diadem to see if I can retain it as per orders from Director Hex. According to these notes it’s been sticking as of late. It’s weird that I felt like nothing was wrong but looking through all of these reports apparently something terrible happened that killed no one?

In accordance with Federation enforcement and the recent State of Emergency, the portal network was disabled and we’re still under quarantine from New Age here at Eden since Eden herself being infected has been troublesome to deal with.

Enohas is at least manageable since everyone lives rather spread out through the forests. However the elf population require special procedures since they don’t naturally sleep the same way most do. So it’s been a bit of an effort to systematically destroy their APT’s and then tranquilize them but at least maintaining isolation is easy. I’m currently at New Jamalia since Eden isn’t cleared yet.

So far from reading all this, it seems as if Si Yeon is the only reason there weren’t even more deaths and a galactic scale disaster. I’ll send her a gift basket.

Hisashi says an experimental pandem radar might help with locating Zero but that is a multi-billion credit spitball of his at the moment as he’s not entirely sure how far into the Wilds it could feasibly detect. He’s currently working on a prototype to see if he can open a rift and detect any meaningful data. I’ve approved his funding request for his prototype though since that was only thirty grand so he could buy some parts.

On the upside Inya and Irae haven’t had any issues, on the downside its because Evershar colony got hit by the Sixth. New Age showed up to lock the place down. They opted for doing what the scary people say instead of being collectively blown to pieces. Though given how non-apparent the nature of the thing is, they have no idea why any of this is going on. Irae recognizes New Age enough to tell everyone else to just go along with it at least.

I set up the missionary program and looped in the plans you asked for into that program. Though currently no one is allowed to leave Eden so slight delay on sending them out.

Oh-ho-ho, putting on the big girl shoes this month are we? We should take pictures of you being firm and authoritative and put up posters everywhere. Don’t worry you were on security feeds when you were doing so, way ahead of you. Gonna need a catch phrase though…

Oh right so I’ve been in touch with New Age. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Is the gist of what I got from them.

Diadem’s portal network was disabled and since the administrator was not present, several communication devices were physically destroyed to prevent incoming communication. Quarantine procedures were also initiated to halt incoming traffic from physical ships.

While most of the afflicted are fine, losing memories of Diadem’s existence is not life threatening, it has caused some degree of chaos due to the severity of Vasia’s actions to contain it before it got into the galactic network. Had this occurred before Selona destroyed galactic communication relays, it would have been impossible to stop. Which might explain what happened sixteen thousand years ago or whatever. Diadem’s portal network was disabled and has stranded some people wherever they might be. Millions have no memory of it’s existence anyways.

While Doctor Si-Yeon has found a way to get it out of people, requiring me to invent a voidforged sedative in the process, cleaning contaminated areas goes slowly. Despite how simple the fix is, just knock people out, it turns out to be a logistical nightmare to knock everyone out at once and also destroy all the memory storage in the area. Turns out psi-crystal storage doesn’t really mind being turned off then back on again and it persists under those conditions. So containment involves manually destroying every hard drive in the colony, including people’s APT, then isolating people, then rendering them all unconscious. Then getting them all new APTs.

Further notes have arrived that the thing is capable of spreading through sixty meter contact with literally anything. A big part of how it functions is psionically so doing some semaphores is fine, all comms rely on psionic technology though so be careful about that.

We’re going to need to find a way to deal with it particularly on Eden City. If we destroy all their computers, it is liable to drop out of the sky. Though currently that project is being handled by Steamworks as they have a talent for this kind of non-magical engineering.

I’ve been prepping some designs for a few research surveys on the idea of the ‘mature’ frame swaps. We’re waiting for Adrienne to get back from the north, there’s also a rival elf engineer from Adelaide who was interested in what is slowly turning into a competition though they’re on lockdown. Though preliminary surveys definitely show a trend in preference towards the early generation series.

Deniau is currently responding to market trends for various medicinal base components rather than finished products. Basically processed ingredients that can be mixed together, this is largely because in the Reach all these aliens need wildly different things. Should demand for such things fall we could easily just start mixing them ourselves for designer products anyways so its not a bad place to start with production.

Aryn and the task force were able to retrieve Kaylen surprisingly smoothly, but now they have a new problem. Diadem is still on lockdown and they are now in possession of a rather dangerous prisoner. More specifically, they found out that Kaylen has been bound to one of the Hydra’s heads. Had she been awake for even a second during that abduction, Hydra would have known about it instantly and the whole operation probably would have gone very wrong very fast.

Though this adds a new problem, they’re running out of supplies to keep Kaylen sedated. They have her practically in a coma to prevent her from waking up and transmitting that information to the Hydra, but also because they’re not sure if they can really keep her in a cell for very long. Any assessment as to Kaylen’s mental state will have to wait until she can be more safely restrained. Currently they’re headed to Moncayo with the hopes of using Vasia’s old prison facility she once made that housed Qhus’tha. Though the problem with that is Kaylen would likely be able to recognize that facility as it was in the territory she once controlled as the leader of the Hero’s Guild.

They have requested advisement on what to do before they run out of medical supplies to keep her in said coma. Since if she wakes up and knows where she is, the Hydra will too. They were trying to contact Renjala but he’s been out of contact for an oddly long time, the taskforce doesn’t know about what happened on Nekhul in any detail yet.

After a series of investigations, Euron’s two missing companions were found to have left to Eden City shortly after the festival. Though with the lockdown it’s not particularly easy to chase them down. Euron himself already left to return to the Demon Kingdom as it were. His other associates went to the Reach station network and Rampart reports that they seem to be transporting something or someone southwards.

So far our teams at Jydoq think that Kennae went east, which from Jydoq would imply he’s headed towards the galactic south. This would imply he was either last seen headed towards Cayetano, the Playatis network, or the Dead Zone created by the Blaiken. At least those are the locations of interest that we know of.

Stories of Lore 62

Greetings, this is Nakka’s News from the Reach Broadcast Network. Today, we examine current supply and demand trends to better plan our investments. Together, like one big happy family.

With the influx of immigrants from the northern galaxy, the famines have flared up once again. Food is very profitable, especially if your customers haven’t been here long enough to understand when to haggle lower or not. This has resulted in gang conflicts particularly in the northern part of the Reach where demand is highest. Vessian tribes in particular have grown increasingly violent over food supplies and will sometimes prey on our newcomers to reduce competition and find a free meal at the same time. If you are in the food business, you may wish to reconsider your security procedures. As well as who you meet with. Starvation has a way of making people desperate enough to do stupid things after all.

The weapons market has begun to bounce back from its recent decline. The increase in newcomers as well as recently ascended civilizations has helped to stabilize the demand. While the higher end and cutting edge weapon producers have weathered the downturn, salvage and weapons of lower quality are now finding their way into the hands of the resurging demand. If you still find yourself holding a great many of these, adjust your market value assessment as necessary. Especially if you are in the northern section of the Reach.

The market for materials, particularly those relating to the manufacture of apparel, continues to rise. With most farms interested in food production and most labor interested in ships and weapons, the shortage of textiles continues. Though the demand is still rising, it does so at a slower than previously predicted rate as station fashion of minimalism continues to gain popularity. With many refusing to even buy lower quality apparel that they feel will simply not last long enough to be worth while. Instead focusing on higher quality clothes for longer use even with lower coverage or practicality. This has in turn boosted the popularity of skin marking traditions, so the materials for the inks necessary is also seeing a strong stability in the markets.

Another industry similarly impacted by the food market is medicine. With most deliberate farming and harvesting turned towards food production, medicine and drug production are at an all time low. Unusual for the Reach, resulting in unwilling sobriety across the network. This has led to an all time high in suicide rates, if we count ill advised actions of desperation as suicide.

In other news, the Reach has seen a recent influx of new competition of unusual caliber. Our resources tell us these individuals are members of a place to the south known as The Demon Kingdom. Their anatomy is wildly unpredictable, as you can see from the pictures on screen they tend to have horned growths on their head of various styles and a sinister gleam to their eye. However, what cannot be easily determined is the sub species of demon. Their life cycle begins as a small creature, this is called an imp. As it grows in age and power it takes on new forms and this continues for a long while. Ending at what is known as a Demon Lord, one of which was seen at the recent Diadome thirtieth anniversary tournament. He crushed vessians, solians, and southern sweetheart Narl’Rey. If you cannot discern the difference between a regular demon and this sub class of demon lords, it is advised to act with extreme caution. They are physically more powerful than vessians, more conniving than krextal, and more meddlesome than solians. Though, it turns out they are from the same system of Sol just another plane of reality.

They are natural schemers, violent rule breakers, predatory tradesmen, and dangerously aggressive. So they’ll fit right in.

For this month’s Rahlken Report, King Rahlken is currently moving westward from the core sectors with a new haul, likely looking to sell his acquisitions. So stay safe out there. This has been your free report from the Reach Broadcast Network, and as usual we are watching. We know everything, and we could tell you what you wish to know for a price. Please contact our official offices if you wish to buy some specific information.

Walters made his offer to the Utewa, though they rejected the idea of joining the Federation. It would harm their main service to the Reach to provide impartial education. While they maintain amicable relations with us, they feel it is of key importance at this time that they remain notably independent. They also do not feel there is enough benefit to it. This is the summarized version after four hours of back and forth pleasantries with Walters.

More importantly, Winter was present to guide the conversation and try to hint about the key. From her empathic abilities she has gleaned that Habrah can either protect themselves from her abilities or doesn’t know they even have the diadem key. They collect a vast amount of historical relics and treasures. It is likely the person they acquired it from didn’t know what it was, and neither does Utewa. Perhaps it is just regarded as some interesting Ika memorabilia. Though telling them they have it and what it is risks opening another can of worms, given that they are kind of intentionally mysterious it is difficult to predict what interests them.

Koharrel made a rocky first contact with the forces of the Sugnam planet because independent forces had been causing trouble before VSEC even arrived. Given how sparse galactic communications can be, they appear to have assumed that they were forward agents of ours since they were solians. As it turns out, the local powers on Sugnam have been capturing and selling their own to the slavers. She reported it to the fleet Admiral who has sent messengers to relay the information to us. Koharrel intends to topple the entire government violently, as her mother once did to her homeworld under VSEC’s banner. The admiral noted that if he just eliminated the foreign mining operations it would at least break up the slavery trade hopefully without having to enter into a full invasion of the planet. Though the situation is still developing, there are two more notable variables. Independent solians have been meddling with things on the planet as they see fit. Likely a Revenant cell of some sort whether authentic or not. As this all developed, demons were spotted on the planet’s western hemisphere poking around though we’re still not sure what they’re up to.

The Nekhul team is currently en route.

The exploration fleet reports a surprising lack of being ambushed by pirates compared to past adventures. Because who is looking out beyond the galaxy for food shipments? Though they haven’t found anything quite yet from scanning and are on the way to push further out in the hopes of finding anything.

We’ve sent the troops down to Evershar’s project planet to help out with the bugs. There are a lot of them it turns out. The mining colony is a sealed facility as if it were still in space that has to burrow through caves right underneath it to keep things from getting in too easily.

Waianoa says she can get you some mining elementals, actually its the same team that helped excavate the collapsed continent on the Diadem plate. They are, as before, prone to partying on their lunch breaks but they can’t be infected by egg laying parasites and are exceptionally good at clearing through the earth. Evershar appreciates the help. This actually fits into Waianoa’s plans to increase the prevalence and relevance of elementals in the middle planes so she’s happy with it.

I read the recap of your discussion with her regarding Lailah. What. The. Fuck. Is this normal? How is this not in the news that someone…oh….I see the classified marker now. I’m uh…going to need to take time to process this. Oh my gods wait that’s why Lailah…ohhhh that’s who was…oh no. Do advisors get bodyguards?

Hisashi reports that he has begun his work into looking for Zero as requested.

So with the primitive pandem plans, I can set up a missionary program if you like. We don’t really have anything for spreading the good word beyond the university and some minor advertising through Diadome showcases. Going to primitive worlds is something that can probably be done with small teams not requiring much direct intervention unless something goes wrong.

Saved the station location, not like it’s going anywhere after all this time. Also sent Irae and Inya to help with the Evershar project. As advisor it is my responsibility to remind you that Evershar are drow nobility who were heavily involved in the Solian conflicts and Inya is an elf. So, hopefully that goes okay.

Wait what do you mean I should go to the desert world? I don’t even know how to open rifts to create water. I’m still taking the 101 class. I’m just going to send that random knight standing around over there, he looks bored and like he knows how to do that. Also I can’t leave comms range or I wouldn’t be able to sort through the emails.

Aryn and the team are headed to Sol in the meantime. We’ve begun the process of turning Rampart into more of a profitable business rather than an undercover outpost. While we retool Rampart, Allison is still there running Rampart for lack of any  other orders. Also Allison is just kind of used to living there at this point. I think…I think she just lives on Kuhas now. Haven’t told her we have a mansion back here now days though.

Well we know Euron was here to meet with Faithrae to some extent. Whether or not that was the full purpose of his visit is questionable. According to Faithrae, he was mostly interested in her information on the gang networks in the northern parts of the reach. Though there’s a quirk to this, related to your other question a little.

Currently we suspect Hyeon was trying to get to Euron via the tournament because, the instant he passes through the doors to return from the Arena he is surrounded by four major demons as well as armed with his actual weapons. For the arena matches he was practically unarmed the entire time and also not surrounded by demons that would significantly worsen everybody’s day. Each of those demons could have taken on almost everyone we know if they meant business. It was at least as far as we can tell, the most vulnerable position he has been in for the last few centuries. Though calling him “vulnerable” seems a bit comedic to say.

This leads to further complications. We believe he entered Diadem with six companions not four. However, the other two were not demons. They likely entered through the side passages into no-man’s land and then either went into the depths of the exerlus controlled plates or looped around through the Squats to enter somewhere else in Federation controlled plates. Euron might have been meeting with Faithrae in a way that as very noticeable on purpose to disguise his true objectives.

As for the location of the suspected former Revenant Hyeon, they are a very difficult person to find. Especially with all of our best agents away on other operations. Your sister said she would take care of looking into it since everyone else is clearly stretched thin and she’s assembled a new team she wants to try out.

Hrmm…smaller frames…standardized designs…remote operation…I’MA SUPERGLUE THEM INTO- ow.

I mean at a certain point we’re just going back to the original models and then developing mechs they can pilot aren’t we? We already know transitioning them between chassis can have detrimental effects, as well as a calibration period to figure out how to operate the new limbs efficiently. While Vanessa has coped well with her redesigns they’re all just slight modifications and additions to her existing operating method. Not to mention that Vanessa is one of the best of the best we have. She’s one of the few who voluntarily train themselves. If we really need the cores to be mobile between frames especially for juveniles though I can go back to putting them in the standard frames and we’ll have to do a long term study on the effects of moving from the gen 1 style of frame into more specialized designs afterwards. Though Auvray definitely isn’t coming out of that ship. I can move him into something bigger but not much room to go smaller. Same problem for the Cradle itself. Cradle’s core is the size of a starship already. Remote control drones might be doable for them though. The amount of systems those two are in control of to make entire ships crewed by an individual turn out to require an awful lot of parallel processing power.

I’ll put the next gen into the old style of frame for the upcoming batches and we’ll see how they go from there. Particularly in monitoring their transitions to upgraded frames and compatibility with it.

Deniau is working on booooring medicine like health and tissue repair. I still think he should have gotten into the meth business since he can’t get addicted to his own product and we could definitely build a brand around robotic quality control.

I’ve sent the fleet that is just hanging around with us to begin surveying the northern border where the stations that guarded against the hive worlds are. Sent Adrienne too since she’s just been sitting around taking up half my workshop. Apparently her pet project was modular limb systems for Gen 1 frames to replicate the effects of organic cybernetics with enhanced customization so that you wouldn’t need to move cores between models but rather just replace limbs one at a time. Pfft, so I sent her to go get some actual work done.

Arcanist The Next Generation

Patch notes!
No Man Alive – Now effects minions as well instead of just heroes. Now limited to direct command.
No Man Behind – Now effects minions as well instead of just heroes. Now limited to direct command.
Super Slayer: Altered natural crit damage bonus to be +2 damage instead of x4.
Intimidation: Altered to not impact entire battlefields in mass combat and instead only affect on a per squad basis.

Fixed hero unit paychecks not being calculated into expenses
Removed Hero Unit influence generation
Fixed a bug where sam was getting infrastructure upgrades for free
Reduced influence gain from military assets since they were sort of made back in the day when your army was 300 dudes and the formula hasn’t scaled well.

Diadome was an absolute clusterfuck if you don’t mind me saying. It could have been worse but those arcurans also tried to interfere with a match directly but couldn’t figure out how to get through the barrier spell.

Walter and Winter are on their way to Utewa, with some traveling involved. Koharrel is on the way to meet up with the first fleet.

I’ve prepared some information about Koharrel’s mission beyond the news report. The planet is called Sugnam, home to a race of hard shelled aliens that have until now been the victims of slaving efforts. Sugnam was discovered to have primitive sapient inhabitants over four hundred years go, with technology equivalent to the industrial revolution. Though the ones who discovered this established slaving and mining operations. With most enslaved Sugnam serving to mine the fuel resources of their own planet and turn it over to their captors. The independent company holding them captive has continued these mining operations for the last two hundred years. Though recently we have reason to suspect the authentic Revenants dealt a major blow to their operations that resulted in a few of the slaver’s starships falling into sugnamian hands, which they prepped in secret. It is also suspected that the same Revenants may have helped them figure out how to work the ship enough to leave the planet and seek help within the Reach.

Currently a moderate Tungsten Teeth fleet consisting of a carrier, assault carrier, and accompanying destroyers, starhips,and cruisers is on the way to auction their services to the highest bidder. As well as other independent mercenaries from the local galactic area. As advisor I will caution to be careful, the Reach is already wary of us behaving as galactic police and might push back on the matter.

Wonaya mentioned there are perhaps hundreds of golden worlds she has seen in the Hive Worlds, you practically can’t throw a space moth without hitting one. The problem is that unlike places such as Koura, these worlds have things living on them. The Hive Worlds are overflowing with life, and every world that is perfectly habitable to us is also habitable to things that can eat us. If you want she can just tell you where to find one based on whether or not you would rather deal with intelligent species or a wild world where nothing really involved for higher intelligence. No matter which one you pick you can expect disease, parasites, stinging insects, big things with big claws and big teeth, and it is a very real concern that you can bring them home with you without knowing. Spores from hive world plants can get on your clothes and very few eco systems outside of the hive worlds can find a balance with such highly evolved alien organic elements. One spore from a hive world can threaten to overrun any other planet’s natural vegetation entirely in a few thousand years give or take. However, there are three within a month’s travel of Diadem, which is already a border station to the hive worlds and though we’re a bit off to the side of a place like Kuhas we do still have a local economy catering to the few reachers that make this voyage already at the far docks.

In all it isn’t a matter of finding golden worlds, it’s picking which kind of problem you want to deal with of those available. Two months voyage in a standard ship will lead you to one such world inhabited by an intelligent space faring species who sell food to the Reach. If you wanted to try something easy to start off. It belongs to the Exny though, who have certain reputations to be considered.

There is a nearby golden world that is currently the working project of House Evershar to begin colonizing which already has an orbiting station that can be used as a pit stop. It is mostly a mining operation featuring aliens from around the reach to do the physical labor while Evershar works to keep them from being eaten by ravenous termite looking things.

The first problem with expanding the broadcast network is range. We’d need to set up Aethernet beacons at each station along the network, which includes tens of thousands of stations. We could try to negotiate with the Reach Broadcast Network to help us figure out how they did it, though they aren’t quite like solian broadcasts. They also have limited coverage throughout the Reach and this is all in part due to the various powers that be all resisting nationalization of the Reach. One notable example nearby is the Quavaol station a short distance aways. They have a particularly critical position as a major trade hub connecting the central Reach to the Northern Reach where we live. A few other similar stations are similarly notable bottlenecks, but the important detail is that even the Reach Broadcast Network cannot jump through this station because they refuse to let anyone set something up like that. Also the last beacon we tried to deploy six years ago got scrapped and salvaged by pirates during a conflict in the area. We could put about four beacons between us and Kuhas to get live information feeds with them and they’ve been fairly cooperative ever since Allison figured out the conspiracy that doesn’t really seem like a conspiracy to us still.

Scans reveal Rahlken’s Ship is currently just a little west of the Vessian homeworld.

The Viper team has been sent to…actually that Quavaol station I just mentioned to check in on piracy activity. Such bottlenecks are obviously a prime place for piracy.

I’ve compiled the locations of the “high chance” places to find the Diadem keys we’re looking for.

We’ve covered the Utewa Academy and Blaiken Throne World. Nekhul is the original homeworld of the Ika and might have one. It is in what are now the hive worlds. Reachers say the place is pretty bad, no one seems to come back from it except some hive species by sheer quantity of unintended attempts. There is still a high chance that Nelta has one but that is still a bit of a shot in the dark without further investigation. The last one we are 80% sure has one going by reports that a crew of frontier explorers had one ‘just in case’. The problem is finding it. It was one of the Ika’s many attempts to explore beyond the galaxy. The flotilla that left the galaxy has never been heard from since it left communications range of the Ika. For all we know they made it to the next galaxy, they could also have been lost somewhere between galaxies.

Nyah! Hehe, no that one was on purpose because it drives you crazy. Your door guards love it though. Anyways I got that report you wanted. It’s a long list, hundreds long. Pre-industrial primitive civilizations exist everywhere in the galaxy and usually just aren’t worth the notice I guess. Some are being exploited by Reachers like the Sugnam and others are largely left alone. I got some options though I put near the top of the list.

There are some very plant-like people in the Hive Worlds nearby who are known to be intelligent but their current technological capability is very primitive. A few of their members are actually in the Reach network, some were abducted to be used as livestock during the famine. This sort of solidified why people take strong quarantine precautions against those worlds. A few got loose by growing spores in the people who were eating them and caused a whole Dread Space incident on one of the Reach stations then they just sort of stuck around since then rather than go home. So, approach, sample, and transport with extreme caution. That station is just theirs now, no one ever went to reclaim it. They can’t leave it since they don’t know how ships work but they get enough solar radiation to stay alive. Actually we could go to the station instead of the planet if you’re feeling brave. It’s been left alone for the last two centuries.

Meanwhile here in the Reach, there is a poor defenseless primitive world who most  people ignore since their world is so barren of resources they will likely never become galactic anyways. They live on a world with incredibly low metallic resources or moisture, its basically a planet with abnormally high occurrence of deserts with the natives living in the oasis’s in between. Good opportunity for a safe contact for experimentation with whatever guidance you want to offer. Not highly contested, not very strong civilization, and somewhat scrawny people.

If you want to go gambling, I have this one for you. There is a planet on the southern side of the reach, so already a problem as it is a long trip. Reachers tend to avoid the place because the natives are psionic life forms. Violent tribalistic psionic life forms who live in other creatures psyches. So upon landing you won’t know which squirrel contains one that might hop aboard you. They can be resisted with wards but not communicated with unless the wards are down or they inhabit something that understands language.

In terms of uplifting projects, well you can pick a fight for the good stuff. There is a planet of terrifying warlords who took down a Reacher starship with bows. Though the Tungsten Teeth like to ‘uplift’ small communities of them to act as recruits along with some of the local network stations. So if you start spreading Federation ‘guidance’ on that world, we’re going to have to fight a few stations and merc bands for colonization rights.

In all, lot of options but they’re generally fairly meek. Pre-industrial and not already uplifted usually means we’re plucking through the ones who weren’t interesting enough to anyone else either. I could just set up a missionaries program for the order and we can let that take a few centuries to pay off though if you like.

If I knew what we’re trying to accomplish here I might be able to narrow down the options a bit better and see what else we might find.

Also you’re up to about seven hundred and eighty six binds because you keep handing them out. There are measurable differences with your plane and abilities, kind of. In the realm of ‘hypothesis’ rather than ‘definitely correlated’. They suspect its having an effect on the energy levels according to some of their readings but over such a scale as a whole plane its really hard to say if that is the case or if they just turned their measuring equipment two degrees to the left. The current theory is that because you made a universe in there, that the effects of worshippers are less pronounced though less required. Had you made a private sanctuary type of plane like Jaerda did it might have more impact but also you wouldn’t have Renjala’s Rim. Also umm, I’m kind of new. Did you name that yourself?

As for our current diplomatic relations, umm here we go.

Demon King: Thinks we’re flakes because Valencia still isn’t a god.
Archons: Aren’t even paying attention to us except for Mahuea. There are also a surprising number of them. We confirmed the existence of another fire archon in the elemental plane somewhere around where Zenaka is.
Abyssal lords: There are fourty eight of them that we know of. Valnacht is the big one near the Sol system though. We have made no contact with them up to now, though it is likely they are on negative terms with us because Kanika already contacted them to smooth things over with Abyssal plane.
Necrosi: It’s on sight with these guys. They are not formally members of the Hassani but they have a very strong defensive pact now. They love Kanika and Sakhessa, the two undead rulers.
Celestials: They’re on our team already. Though I understand from your notes here that it would be a ‘tense alliance’ with Ankathi?

In all if they’re not your friend already they’re probably Kanika’s friend at this stage. Meaning altering relations with them will be a bit of a political undertaking. Also I’m still not sure why Lord Euron is here.

Chevalier stated he would remain in retirement for now, still pursuing the path of philosophy and writing archives to pass down the results of his studies to future generations of Voidforged. He’s over in section 3A and built a little museum garden library thing where he continues to ponder the meaning of existence. Like a nerd.

Vanessa agreed to come back though, she doesn’t have as much going on. She’s up in that corner over there, the shadowy one. Still not the most talkative and I think she’s hiding from the rookies. Now that she’s the veteran, the OG, the most combat experienced, the wise old woman in the barracks, and what have you- they try to ask her for war stories a lot and she is still a loner. So I think she’s hiding in the control room so that the rookies will ask you questions instead of her.

Ever since trying to work on Arsene I have been attempting to better standardize core interfaces methods, though the problem of transferring them between bodies is sort of where the hiccup is. I actually experimented on this by swapping the cores of Vanessa and Adrienne. Vanessa did not gain the ability to use her hands, if anything it was worse, and Adrienne could not stand up without assistance from a rope. Unfortunately, Vanessa is made entirely out of sharp things so the rope plan went south and Adrienne was stuck on the floor until we got a lifter to put her back on the maintenance table.

Currently we can move things around a lil bit, though cores can sometimes be unique. Auvray is a particular example, so is the Cradle. Their cores aren’t going to fit with aaaaanything else purely due to size. Souris I might be able to put in a little drone though. Maybe I can come up with some sort of little robot dog for Malgier and similar classes of voidforged. Though I’ll revisit the adapter work to see what might be done. There probably is some merit to making sure they can all enter into humanoid bodies just to give them access to the rest of the Federation if they want to hang out with the humies.

As for formalizing a guide to the diadem wild life, which we still have since we made the first one so this would technically be the second edition, to be noted one issue is that they keep coming up with new models to probe our defenses with. Actually it’s been a real problem, over the years things get progressively more dire if we refuse to adapt to their adaptations to our adaptations to their adaptations to our adaptations to their adaptations. Though that is sort of why I created Malgier, he can hunt the big tunneling shits that keep popping up in the Squats behind the front lines. Souris is good for dealing with the ceiling stickers too. Though I’ve gone ahead and updated the survival guide as you asked.

We could start a new drug company though sourcing for manufacturing is to be considered. The farms up top are strained to the limit as it is so we might want to consider where we get our supplies. Unless we figure out a way to synthesize some stuff from motor oil. To that end, the Federation has left a wide open hole in their drug laws. Lancaster opted for the ‘eh do whatever you want to yourself’ approach back at the founding of Somnus government. So we can inject these suckers with anything! Deniau has been been trying to make the most addictive thing possible but I need more test subjects since Voidforged don’t do drugs.

Who do you want to send to look for Kennae and where? Also I get the impression no one can humble your sister. She’s just not a humble person.

As for the Phantoms, I’ll give a brief summary of the requested information.

Kanika is usually in Thenica but not where you would think. The capital of Thenica is the former Shetou city of Sacheon as it has the most infrastructure to serve this role. Reports indicate she is more frequently found in a random swamp in the countryside rather than the palace. It actually wouldn’t be hard to reach this unguarded swamp she uses as her personal sanctuary. Apparently it is due for construction to get it into shape to serve as her new castle, but she hasn’t bothered to divert the resources to the construction yet since she is still investing heavily into rebuilding Sol. This is the most vulnerable location we can think of as per your request. Though she is just as often at the palace, Aureum, aboard the fleets, or just wandering the galaxy to sort through various external affairs. It is hard to keep track of her as she has powerful pandem casters as her assistants who both learned the Renjala’s rift to take her wherever she wants to go whenever she wants to be there. Honestly the problem isn’t getting to her, its what do you do once you get there?

Sakhessa is usually at the capital of Sacheon trying to manage things. She goes everywhere on her golden hover-throne and her real home is still Aureum which she returns to at the end of each day. Though, portals. She is at all times guarded by members of her golden legion and the notorious basilisk that is usually curled up on her hover-throne’s extended platform. She is most vulnerable while at Sacheon obviously, which is where she spends her work day.

Deinuu is usually hanging out with Sakhessa or somewhere in the galaxy causing trouble. He’s actually really hard to track. Last we saw him he was in the eastern part of the galaxy but we have no idea what he was doing out there as it is beyond our current network. However, if he isn’t with Sakhessa he is frequently alone.

Faelyn: Mostly lurks around Aureum and manages their fleets. Her primary activities as of late have been preventing piracy and alien invasions. As well as maintaining border security and intercepting suspicious visitors who are on their way to Sol. The problem with picking her off is that Aureum is unassailable. The Warrens entrance is now so heavily guarded that we would lose our entire fleet trying to approach the planet inside the Warrens entrance. However, there are two ways in and security is a lil more lax about the side facing the deeper Warrens. Though that requires finding a Warrens entrance, scouting a path there, and not getting found by the Blaiken. Let alone approaching through narrow tunnels undetected. Infiltration is the most viable option but they do not allow any mortal into Aureum unless they are implanted with ‘security assurances’.

Eliza Pierce as you learned, is a horrifying aberration that has transcended all logical ability to understand as a creature. She’s usually at SV2, the capital estate of the Jaal’Darya where she continues her experiments. Ever since the war, Jaal’Darya has been reinforced heavily. Though honestly Eliza herself is more terrifying than the turrets, security systems, and standing army of monsters that protect the facility.

Valencia Desoir can often be found either at the Desoir estate in the northern continent of Thenica or at the Sacheon capital keeping up her work maintaining all the money. She is surrounded by her own family members and has been provided guards by the Hassani. It is likely that at some point in between those two places she is at her most vulnerable but we don’t have more information on her day to day life.

Yasrena is not even where she appears to be at any time. The true Yasrena, also known as The Shadow, is in the Shadow Plane at all times and just possesses people to make appearances around the galaxy. Technically they show up to the Astral Order meetings, that is when they are most vulnerable. The obvious danger there is they cannot be killed outside their own plane and the first person to piss her off is going to lose the war within a year.

Agallias isn’t even in Sol or Auwana. They’re just hanging out on some alien world they conquered and rule over three alien systems as their deified ruler. Which to be fair, he is a titan. So…can’t really say they’re wrong. Agallias as a member is somewhat disconnected from the rest of the Hassani council. He is powerful enough that they have to acknowledge him but he’s much more concerned with doing his own thing. Apparently his hobby has become trying to build new worlds as he once built Thenica. Apparently he’s got great approval ratings though as he is genuinely trying to create new paradises for his mortals. He seems them as his personal ant farm or something. He seems interested in however Renjala started creating a new pantheon lately and has been researching into the matter to see if he can do so as well to seed life for his new people. He really just shows up if they call for him.

Sabrae is in her newly reconstructed Beldobaan fortress. She almost never leaves it.

The Hydra never leaves Aureum as far as we can tell. Relying on agents to do anything that would otherwise require them to go somewhere. They’re the size of a small mountain so for obvious reasons, they don’t really go places since they can’t fit through most locations.

As fro Kaylen, she also spends most of her time at Estelcar, the former Alnae capital that has been rebuilt for governing that hemisphere of Thenica and keeping the ex-alnaeans and drow a good distance apart from each other. Though efforts are being made to ease racial tensions and Kaylen has been, likely forced, into a marriage with a drow to act as a celebrity couple. Not sure if that’s being done to humiliate her further, begin easing public tensions between the two races, or both. There has actually been a lot of effort on Sakhessa’s part to calm that ancient war down. Especially now that so few elves are left. Anyways, Kaylen is usually at Estelcar and while she herself isn’t under the heaviest guard the building she works in is guarded by beholders and liches. Actually several of them just work there but they happen to be a significant obstacle to consider if we were to raid the place. She is also often in the direct presence of higher members of the Hassani as she is in the highest ranking position of any mortal so she has to report to the Hassani council’s delegates. I would however say she is most vulnerable at night when she is at home and sleeping. Though the estate includes other elven councilors and is at least decently guarded. Also as a note with this whole rescue operation, if she’s thoroughly brainwashed enough to fight her rescuers don’t forget she’s still a grandmaster and fighting her is a big enough problem. She likely is the guard for that estate.

Also you know an actual lich, they can probably teach you incarnum better than Natasha but yes she technically could.

The Exiled Generation

To fill your rosters for the new generation we’re having a draft. You get to pick members of the draft until you have filled all 8 of your roster slots. You cannot see their stats and pre-existing characters haven’t had their Sol War xp paid out yet. Choose wisely. Pretty much all of you except sam have yourself, your advisor, and one holdover who never retired or had anywhere else to go so you have 5 slots to fill. Sam has 4 slots because he has two agents who never moved on.

I ran out of time in getting to the character exp updates and will just do that over the next week since that is also when i’ll be doing the stats for anyone that gets drafted. For the same reason I did not have time to proofread, prepare for jank and blind spots.

The draft page is here.

Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the unification of Sol across the middle planes. Sol News Network covers a retrospective of the last quarter century spent under the rule of Empress Kanika Hassani, eternal may she reign.

Some people might be too young to even remember before the Hassani empire, though old timers like myself can tell you that the twenty five years of peace we have enjoyed is unprecedented. For over a thousand years the elves and drow waged war with one another across the system, and for a thousand more before that kingdoms did the same. Even the insistent attacks on Sol from galactic forces have done far less damage than the initial Nelta invasions. Though some would argue that the Hassani defense policy is a little too aggressive.

Though things haven’t been perfect, rebellions still occur throughout Sol. Some peaceful protests and lobbying. Terrorist attacks from the Hero’s Guild that advocates for elven superiority to return. Crime is at an all time high due to the lack of enforcement under the Hassani Council, though this could also be blamed on the drow territories becoming more integrated into other elements of the system and their lax views on enforcement.

After the Nelta invasions Sol was left in ruins, with a few pockets of civilization remaining while the elves who once ruled became tribal cannibals. Even more was lost during the war between the Void State Federation and the Kar’Soluth territories, as well as the immediately following war between Shetou, Valdir, and the Hassani. Thanks to the work of the Hassani, multiple cities have been rebuilt and are now economically thriving once again. It is amazing how fast things get done when elves aren’t locked in a racial war against one another.

In galactic news, the Reach has been home to those that refused to abide by the Hassani’s rule over Sol for the last two decades. Jydoq continues to maintain its independence. The Yelkin hemisphere still keeps a stance of absolute neutrality though the Karhast hemisphere is at least amicable to the Hassani presence and remains a popular tourist destination after the wars.

The northern galaxy has become traversible again as the war between the two exerlus collectives reached a stalemate. While the fighting continues, resources have become so sparse that both sides have retreated to their original positions to launch small scale skirmishes against one another. Though the galactic north will likely take thousands of years to recover from the destruction of 90% of their metallic resources. Leading to the extinction of 4 sapient species and the collapse of sixteen civilizations. With the fall of their border control checkpoints, we are seeing the slow but seemingly inevitable expansion of hive world species into the galactic north. Many express a lack of concern for the long term possibilities since it is likely that the jesai will curb this before it gets too far as they would be the next ones affected. Though that has brought little solace or aid to the people living in those places.

Others from the galactic north welcome the hive worlds expansion, with the loss of so many civilizations and their metallic resources the organic mass growth that comes with the spread of the Hive World’s influence brings them valuable resources for food and access to new possibilities.

Nelta has managed to reach a ceasefire with the Jesai after the destruction of four hundred planets, thanks in part to an intervention by the Exerlus. The lost worlds now remain as a part of the newly coined “shattered expanse”. A place with no remaining inhabitable worlds that has become the new border between the Jesai and Nelta territories. Despite the agreement to a ceasefire, relations remain tense. Public opinion leans towards, in the quote of our orc anchor “the Jesai are dicks”. Leading to a general distrust of theocracies. In particular it has increased wariness of the supposedly neutral “New Pantheon” created by solians but primarily housed at Diadem under the flag of the Void State Federation. Which remains hostile to the Hassani in general.

This retrospective brought to you by public funding from the Desoir family. Don’t forget to pay your taxes!

Greetings, this is Nakka’s News from the Reach Broadcast Network. Today, I’d like to talk to you about some unique business opportunities. Our field reporters have uncovered some movement in our great anarchic corner of the galaxy.

It is the 30th anniversary of the Void State Federation moving into what we now call Diadem in the northwestern corners of the Reach network. After thirty years, it has become largely accepted that they will not be overrun by the native machines of Diadem and it seems the Federation is here to stay. It being their 30th Anniversary means they are planning an extra special festival as they host every year, there has never been a better time to visit. Their border security is particular lax at this time of year to admit Reachers to the festival. Prize money can be won at a grand variety of events, paid for by the Federation itself. It is also a great opportunity to make connections and find potential contracts. Diadem itself specializes in farming and food production, a lucrative market in a nation of space stations. I also have it on the good word of  my contacts that Bakara is experiencing a famine, while it is some distance away they would likely be willing to pay a premium.

For those unfamiliar with the inhabitants of Diadem, they are exiled solians and very multi species friendly. They also include the likes of the Caelkians, the famous Ruffians, the Zenakans, and of course the Nomad Flotilla. All of which are technically members of their government expanse. They also maintain amicable relationships with the Utewa and Vessians. Making this festival a great opportunity for networking with otherwise elusive forces of the Reach. Diadem also provides some of the strongest investments among the Reach into education networks similar to Utewa. Offering alternative academies for those interested. They also boast strong immigration policies, for those who would like a place to settle down.

Diadem also offers the unique gate network into other planes, for those inclined to exploration and pioneering in new realms. Rumors say their Pantheon contains a member who can send a whole fleet to anywhere in the galaxy they desire. Should the price be right of course.

Some are concerned that they are overstepping their position and trying to instate a galactic government akin to Nelta or the southern Hassani here within our beloved Reach. Do not be concerned, the powers that be will tend to them if necessary. Their laws are only applicable within their own borders, should they try to extend their enforcement beyond we can rest assured that they will meet the same fate as the last to try.

For those visiting the ringworld of Diadem for the festivities, it is advised to be culturally aware of their current position. They are a diverse group, but they do prefer conflicts be resolved in non lethal fashion while within their borders. Stick to fists and knives while you are there, and be aware that they have multiple enforcement agencies. It has only been twenty five years since they entered into exile from their homeworld among the solians, but that is a significant portion of some species lifespans. See this image to understand the differences between elves and drow in particular. These are very common species within their collective who have lived long enough to still be sore losers about the matter. Notice the ears. Most other races will be of shorter lifespans, and are a part of what they call the “Exiled Generation”. A group born since the day after the war was lost. They can be a little disassociated from their lost homeworld, true Reachers like ourselves. Consider your business propositions and partners accordingly.

Nearby, Kuhas is also seeing an expansion of its facilities. With the Hive Worlds expanding into the galactic north thanks to the loss of the border stations that kept them in check, now is a great time to make some investments there. A great deal of ships are passing through to prospect the worlds due to be infected. Piracy and security are likewise at an all time high near Kuhas and other northern border stations. Several organizations, including the Silver Fleet are preparing expeditions to see what might be gained. Providing stable employment opportunities. Our informants report a sixteen percent increase in economic activity since last month’s report. It is expected to continue rising with initial projections estimating a few decades of growth. If you aren’t in the northern networks, it might be time to make the journey.

We are seeing a general decline in activity in the southern network. The Jydoq embassies at Elasyn have seen a twelve percent decline in contract offers as the rebuilding of their planet begins to slow, with many projects having been completed. Elasyn itself remains the most profitable world in the Reach, but still sees an overall decline in its economy of eight percent since last month’s report. Continuing a trend for the last five years.

The Hassani employment has increased by seventeen percent, though seventeen percent of only a handful of opportunities is still a very low number of opportunities. These offers are usually made by smaller agencies within the Hassani Empire, as the Empire itself still maintains its strict self reliance. Most of these opportunities are often run by rebels and outlaws of the Hassani civilization. So don’t be too loud about your offerings, as they remain the most militarily powerful civilization in southern galaxy barring the mysterious dead zone around the Blaiken.

Meanwhile, the Reach welcomes yet another enterprising group. That little backwater swamp world southwest of Elasyn finally figured out space travel. Thanks to their capture of some slave ships that made the mistake of misplacing their keys. Despite two centuries of harvesting there, it appears that an outside group may have played a hand in this mistake in operations. The masked solians, who Diadem swears they have no association with. Despite both Diadem and the masked ones having a notable distaste for slavery. Curious. Though either way, the planet has reached official galactic awareness. They are in the usual stages of realizing they cannot defend themselves while others leap upon them. Initial prospecting reveals they are rich in fuel resources, and poor in ideas of how to use it. Whichever side of the matter you fall upon, this development means there is work to be found and resources to be gained whether with these primitives or with their slavers. Particularly for practitioners of the profession we call security. Though, we also have news that the Tungsten Teeth are already on the way, but not who will win the bidding for their services. Consider your moves accordingly.

We have also seen an influx of immigrants from the northern galaxy, seeking refuge from the Exerlus wars. Now that the fighting has settled down, transporters have been finding work extracting those with anything left to trade for passage to a more civilized place. You know its bad when we’re the ‘civilized’ option. This means expect newcomers to be looking for work, newcomers with no associations here in the Reach. For those of you who are looking to hire rather than to work, these newfound independents might be just the right kind of people for your business. The Silver Fleet in particular has been scooping up quite a few to serve as their guides and experts for the upcoming prospecting expeditions into the northern galaxy.

Also for this month’s Rahlken Report, King Rahlken is currently near the core sectors. So stay safe out there. This has been your free report from the Reach Broadcast Network, and as usual we are watching. We know everything, and we could tell you what you wish to know for a price. Please contact our official offices if you wish to buy some specific information.

Thanks to Nah division and Michael Haggard we were able to deploy the scorpion grass project within Beldobaan no less which should stifle their ability to keep track of what we’re up to. Though it appears Sethis Tyne’s sister also managed to get ahold of it and deploy it into our own systems, every time I try to make any entry of Faithrae it is immediately deleted. At the very least the project is liable to keep us safe for a little while from the Hassani’s attention. As long as Renjala doesn’t personally walk around screaming “Come and get me Kanika”.

The medical labs have managed to reduce infection issues and create more safeguards and protocols should we ever get into a war with the Jaal’Darya again. Protocols have also been devised to help quarantine respond to the mummy rot should that be utilized against us. There are two versions of these measures. One run by VSEC Medical which features several plans to slow such infections and another by New Age which hopes to eliminate their spread. You can guess which one involved flamethrowers. The secondary goal of creating a genetic weapon has seen development issues ever since the Revenants attacked and destroyed the lab. They did the same thing to the Jaal’Darya too in order to destroy a project we learned would have weaponized the mummy rot into an interstellar railgun.

The exploration teams have vastly improved our mapping and understanding of the Reach network though it is hard to do so with precision. The network is intentionally chaotic and explorers started encountering resistance when a rumor began that they were compiling information for the Federation to use in expanding to take over sections of the network. The various planets in between the station travel lanes have been further mapped out to discover hundreds of worlds with their own civilizations and colonization attempts by some of these civilizations. As well as massive craters from major cities that were stolen by Rahlken.

While some of the vessians are fine working at the farms to provide themselves with food, they are uninterested in establishing themselves as a member state at this time. In particular because Grand Chief Amasis is already involved in several diplomatic relations with other powers of the Reach and it would create several problems for these alliances if the Vessians as a whole were to join the Federation formally. Also because their homeworld is so far from Diadem it brings about the issue that their world would be the first one targeted by Rahlken if the Federation was perceived as growing too large and destabilizing the gentle balance that keeps the Reach in a state of anarchy.

Through a somewhat long complicated backwards process, we’ve made some progress on the Diadem keys. At some point a powerful civilization involved in the alliance that included the Ika and Kanis had one of the keys in safekeeping. The entire city the key was within was taken by Rahlken some while ago and the key itself was sold off. After passing through a few hands it wound up with the Utewa, and Nah division has a theory that its kept in an underground vault along with many other treasures of the galaxy that they have collected. We have never been able to see the vault so we’re not sure what to expect is within there.

Mornin’ meowstah….nyah. I’m sorry its a habit, I’ve been an aethernet streamer for six years, I’m sorry it just comes out. Please don’t fire me I need this job, with my viewership lately I’ll have to do GFE content and it’s all downhill from there. Once you do GFE you can only get creepy fans in chat and you can’t do porn either because those fans will stab any costars you have in a back alley and then no one wants to work with you except big tough orcs and I’m not saying I’ve tried it but I’m concerned my holes can’t handle that. Nyah.

Eden can’t remove memories as it turns out, that’s Vasia’s line of work. Side effects may include brain damage, worse memories, and developing a permanent problem.

Eden City is now located in my apparent home plane of Valjala and floating around randomly, though the concept of putting Eden inside your Rim never quite worked out. You know, it took me three weeks to figure out what that joke was and I was about to report some of the office staff for sexual harassment there.

We’ve started the project of infiltrating near-era reach civilizations with your little space moths and pandem projects. More accurately we left it to the Shadow Order since distributing information in secret is sort of their gig. Lot of industrializing planet’s don’t know the shadowy demon god is an alien, which keeps things simple for them.

Well if nothing else your sister is a good training partner, though the rest of the office is concerned when you come back from ‘training’ barely able to walk. It really looks like one of these days she’s just going to kill you on accident.

The agent that came back from Arkaric’s club on Elasyn filled half their report with ‘reasons that place is insane’. It is fairly sickening to be honest, but I don’t know why they had to fill half their report with ‘activities that were available’. As for contacting Daiheb, Selona pointed out that he can summon for them upon request, but only if you bring an artifact to trade to her. Wasting the time of someone with powers to rival a cosmic entity is generally ill advised. Though half of the Elasyn operation is a front for people to bring artifacts in, Arkaric serves as the front desk of Elizabeth’s storefront. There is apparently another one in the Nelta territories that Elizabeth also uses.

After years of keeping tabs on the Hydra, we’ve seen them integrate more formally into the Hassani as one of the major governors of Sol. Lancaster and Jaerda’s rants aside, the Hydra is well suited to managing a vast government and the productivity of the Hassani Empire is six times that of either Alnae or Shetou’s performance history. This has led them to recover faster than anyone else from the wars and the Hydra has become one of the main councilors under Kanika. Though they are mostly handling civil matters for the empire.

As for relations between the Hassani and the Blaiken, we’ve been able to confirm that Mother is just outright a part of Selona’s team and by relation comes into regular contact with Kanika. The basis of the connections is that the top leaders of both the Blaiken and the Hassani work for Selona. Along with Jarias the exiled exerlus, Decaelys the entity, and King Rahlken.

Which leads to another path of investigation we’ve been exploring. Decaelys is also a member of this top level group but it can be hard to remember that Decaelys is capable of time manipulation and now is in possession of the Renjala’s Rift spell. They can be anywhere at anytime, since we are most frequently watching the Hassani that is where we see them but our agents report confirmation that she is just as frequently found alongside Mother, Rahlken, or Jarias as needed. Though they still can’t figure out why she’s even hanging out with them. Decaelys is possibly the most powerful member of the entire group, she can literally move stars around after all. Though she is often doing favors and work for the others and we’ve not really been able to figure out why. I don’t think even Selona could do much to her, even if you can see the future how do you stop someone like Decaelys from doing as they please? Either somehow this group provides great value to her or the fact that the jesai worship a cosmic entity that can tell them the future plays some part of their interest in Selona who can do much the same and with much higher frequency.

Ah how young and naive we were when we thought your moocher of a sister could be placated and controlled. Now she owns both our asses, runs more of Diadem than any official government body, and getting her a husband is now the least of our concerns.

This generation continues to see a lot of new prototype designs more purpose built to their function. Though with the creation of the university I have to admit we kind of suck at art. Adrienne and I can do it, though our art is our prototypes and creations. However, data is hard to come by on the phenomenon. Chevalier was one of the most expressive among us, he and Sacha in particular were always the most interested in exploring what it meant to be a voidforged in particular. Their personalities are something of a rarity nowadays and I’m not sure if my designs are to blame or if the current generation is just a product of the times. As well as the new custom frames that we allow others to request with the company we set up.

Even if we live aboard the Cradle instead of Diadem and we have a lot less to be mopey about, the constant bombardment of the meatbags on the aethernet whining about how everything sucks might be taking its toll even on our own who have little else in their history to build context out of. Members with the new more purposeful and unique designs are part of a phenomenon where they exist in a galaxy not really built to give them the ability to express their agency. A great example of this was Arsene. Living in a world built for humanoids, Arsene was never able to interact with them beyond a few purpose built special facilities. We have been careful about that in the repaired section of the Cradle that we lost back in the Sol War, allowing for more access for different body types. The situation is still ongoing, though its something to keep an eye on. Machines like Adrienne and yourself in particular can easily blend into a humanoid world, though Auvray the living destroyer is limited in how they can ever interface with others. I don’t need to blend in, I make the world to my image. I create my companions with my own hands and craft this cradle of iron life to my desires. I AM A MACHINE GOD! That and I can fit in Diadem hallways just fine.

Anyways, for some reason the Director’s board is rallying up a new wave of agents. Allow me to present to you my newest meanest, leanest designs. Oh and Le Havre has been developing so heavily for so long that it’s having a bit of a homeless crisis at the moment. We might want to build more residential zones.