OSCP boot sequence initiated.
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Macrocosmic Research Outpost-327 connected.
WELCOME, Morgan Lloyd.
mlloyd@OSCP:~$ ./optdiag
Last Sync:
[14 d 10 hr 46 min ago]
Earth Date / Time: (ERR±00:15)
[2020-MAY-10 20:51]
Surface Temp:
[13°C]
Local Conditions:
[INIMICAL TO HUMAN LIFE]
Staff Cohesion Levels:
[HIGH]
Strength of Personal Narrative:
[BASELINE]
Self-Actualization:
[PENDING]
-v or --verbose to view full list
There is (1) item requiring your attention:
INCIDENT REPORT O327-2020-APR-26 - Prelim. Observation Notes
View [Y/N]? Y
INCIDENT REPORT O327-2020-APR-26
ANNOTATIONS PROVIDED BY
Rsr. Morgan Lloyd
Junior Staff of Xenocartography, Outpost-327
LOCATION
Planet AMARANTUS, Tangent-B2N7Q
SUBJECT
Autonomous Telemetry Drone MÍM-0
PREAMBLE
Most of our exploratory findings don’t come from humans. Instead, they’re sourced from a veritable battalion of autonomous telemetry drones, which scour the surface of this planet and other Basal Worlds like it, compiling data. Responsibility for deciphering said data is handed off at the crossroads of a half-dozen Outpost-327 Sections.
Xenocartography—the Section I fall under—carries the burden of this task. We’re set to work interpreting the data, mining it for working geospatial information, isolating risks, and parcelling out those risks to the proper Sections. And there’s risks aplenty. When dealing with islands of reality governed by non-standard paraphysics, that’s to be expected. Entire, previously non-existent scientific fields find their incipiency at Macrocosmic Outposts. Entire fields that dissolve if you so much as travel one fermi outside their inexplicable domains.
Each telemetry drone we deploy is a fearsome host of technological ingenuity. Not sapient—not quite sentient, either—but with wisdom beyond its programming, and none of the trepidation of its programmers. As will soon make itself known, however, no drone is ever truly insulated from human interaction.
ANNOTATED A/V LOG
[ BEGIN LOG ]
| MÍM-0 exits a portal aperture at a high velocity, completing a successful transit. | |
| MORGAN |
Already have an issue. This isn’t raw footage; it starts directly after a cut. Either someone piloted this drone remotely, or they edited the footage ex post facto. Whichever the explanation, the context is long gone. This rig at least has positional data. Matches Zone-6: Unexplored territory some 250 km away, towards Point-Polaris.. Point-Polaris The location at which the two suns appear to converge below the horizon. |
| MÍM-0 initiates a 360-degree tracking shot. It first pans across the portal, then steadily captures the landscape at altitude. | |
| MORGAN |
Altitude estimated at 130 metres, give or take 10 metres. So, it passed through a portal blind. Why risk an unsupported Traversal Pathway like that? If Luna or a Sister Outpost sent this drone, we’d at least have been informed ahead of time. |
|
MÍM-0 captures rainfall with muted violet colouration. Sparse megaflora -- a 1-km-tall species of off-white fungi akin to terrestrial mushrooms -- towers over the surroundings. Climbing down their stalks are a mutually dependent genus of copper-toned vine plants. A low, pale fog covers the surface of the planet and stretches towards the horizons. The local binary star system (B-type blue main-sequence star TENEBRIS; M-type red dwarf star CLARA) dominates opposing sides of the sky. |
|
| MORGAN | How did Retrieval get hold of this footage, anyhow? If they have the drone, there’s no such entry in the storage registrar. Actually—it shows zero inbound drones for the past two weeks now! |
|
MÍM-0 completes one revolution, then goes idle. The portal is now in full view. Inside, complex networks of distinct kaleidoscopic lights overlap, flicker, and transform across a non-visible blackbody. The contents of this space stretch into infinity. 2X FFW ▶▶ The portal aperture visibly stutters and becomes unstable. It sheds high-energy ejecta before collapsing inward. MÍM-0 abruptly plummets. |
|
| MORGAN | Here’s where I lose positional data. |
|
MÍM-0 careens into the side of an escarpment. View whirls spasmodically as it strikes the ground many times over. MÍM-0 finally comes to rest on even ground. Auxiliary power activates. View distorts; the camera is heavily damaged. Pieces of destroyed casing and the drone sensor suite are strewn across the scarp face and ground. 30X FFW ▶▶
DUSK In the distance, a point of light becomes visible. 5X FFW ▶▶ |
|
| MORGAN | And this is… who? Looks like a Traversal Specialist. They… don’t seem familiar. |
| [VOICE-1] | Found you. |
| MORGAN |
Well, that settles some of the “who”—a woman’s voice, albeit garbled. This piece of junk will surely pack it in soon. If the microcomputer is intact, she(?) might be able to download the path programmed into MÍM-0. It’s seeming unlikely there’s much else to salvage. |
|
The woman is outfitted with a pressurized Traversal Suit.. Traversal Suit An up-armored environment suit rated for inter-Tangential travel. The wearer is augmented via force amplifiers. She crouches so the camera and her helmet are level. A faceplate and polarized visor conceal her identity. Setting a powered torch left of view, she deactivates her headlamp. Patting her utility belt, she searches the belt-loops, then unholsters a concealed multitool. She works open a compartment atop MÍM-0. « Microcomputer Accessed -- ACCESS DENIED [1/3] » « Microcomputer Accessed -- ACCESS DENIED [2/3] »
« Microcomputer Accessed -- ACCESS GRANTED [3/3] » |
|
| MORGAN | If only we could speak. I would ask where she’s from; where she’s going. Isn’t it lonely out there? |
| She activates a forearm-mounted touchscreen and keys in the Tangent information. Next, she opens an isometric rendering of MÍM-0 and taps the screen twice. | |
| [VOICE-1] |
Start recording. The drone you are currently accessing is known by the call-sign “MÍM-0”. Its hardware is autonomous. When combined with its carrying capacity, it can collect, store, and transmit data continuously and run without human supervision for one-to-three years, Sol Standard Time. This drone is—was—my responsibility. So, when it came to tracking down its location, let’s say I was both extremely lucky, and… [She gestures to her surroundings in frustration, then lets her arms drop.] Yeah. The odds of anyone finding this are slim. But “honesty is the only policy,” and I’m fine being blunt. So. Transmitter got blown off in the crash. There is a non-zero chance I might be able to jury-rig something together, and boost a signal somehow, except these are not the conditions you want to be out in the open for. [She laughs nervously.] That leaves the analog method: Recording this message in hopes that the right party will find it. [She sighs.] Eventually, if at all. |
| MORGAN | Fuck. |
| [VOICE-1] |
These are, of course, my aims on paper. The spirit of my deeds is more… involved. I wanted this drone to lead me to an Outpost. Once there, I would deliver the most important message of my mission—of my entire career—and offer my hand to anyone trying to hold on and regroup there. Now, though? Whether I even get the chance, or anyone else… Listen. If this confuses you, I get it. Before I go on, there is just one small part of this that you need to understand. [Pause.] I simply have no other choice. |
| MORGAN | No notes. Can’t even imagine what she’s lost to end up here. |
| [VOICE-1] |
Here’s what we’re faced with. Back home, The Foundation is going scorched-earth on everything pertaining to Project: SIGHTSEER. Why? At its core, The Foundation is little more than a frightened, wild boar. It’s constantly pressed up at the edge of its comfort zone. The Veil, in contrast, is an attempt at domestication. Until today. Threats against the status quo are now officially unavoidable. And the epiphany is deafening. [She places a gloved fist on the ground.] But. Rather than let world governments and the mainstream media stick The Foundation’s dirty laundry where the Veil used to hang, VEILBURST Protocol takes the most radical countermeasure ever conceived: First, you tear down the Veil of Normality on your own terms. If you can get ahead of the crisis, and dodge the bad PR-equivalent of a nuclear deluge, you can better control what happens next. But only if you accept some small collateral. [She lowers her head.] That’s us. This means our contacts with Earth are effectively lost. Maybe indefinitely. |
|
Long pause. She raises to a stand, pauses again, then kicks the hull of MÍM-0. The drone is upended and rolls to face the opposite direction. View judders, now upside-down. |
|
| [VOICE-1] | [Faintly, to herself.] I was right—autopilot. Nothing’s programmed in here. It’s a test model. |
| MORGAN | Translation: Someone must’ve wiped it. |
|
Reverberations settle, but the camera becomes defocused. 3X FFW ▶▶ 10X FFW ▶▶
FIRST DAWN Partial details are now clear. There is a void in the fog. A throng of mist has been disturbed and swirls around an implacable locus, about which it is repelled. |
|
| MORGAN |
Spatial anomaly, 1 or 1.5 metres in diameter. Could be something like a rare atmospheric phenomenon; one we haven’t yet encountered! Where did she go? Is she getting this? |
| [VOICE-1] | [Whispering.] Look. |
|
She lifts the drone and rights it. After a moment, she takes a defensive position behind the drone. 2X FFW ▶▶ |
|
| MORGAN | A day in the life of your average transcriptionist. |
| From the drone, a masculine-coded voice follows. | |
| [VOICE-2] | Kay-One, do you read? Come in, Kay-One. Over. |
| [VOICE-1] K-1 |
This is she. To whom am I speaking? Over. |
| [VOICE-2] | COMMAND stopped all communication, both ways. You won’t (STATIC) for at least a few hours. This was the most I could muster, but you’re on your own now. |
| [VOICE-1] K-1 |
How did you get my position? |
| [VOICE-2] |
VEILBURST was no surefire strategy. There are (STATIC) it did not account for. It’s kicked off a massive anomalous disturbance. Exotic energy. (STATIC) beacon. (STATIC) rushing at the Gates. Whatever you do, you need to draw (STATIC) away. |
| [VOICE-1] K-1 |
Draw what? I don’t— |
| MORGAN | It’s a recording! Hear him out! |
| [VOICE-2] | This is an AMIDA-Class Total Emergency, Kay-One. I repeat, we cannot have you dredging those things back here. (STATIC) you hear me? Stay out of dodge. |
| A localized cyclone forms around the spatial anomaly. High pressure at its boundary clashes with the low-pressure region that encircles it. | |
| MORGAN | Run! |
|
Suddenly, the locus of the anomaly implodes with a thunderclap, firing mist in all directions. An ensuing shockwave knocks K-1 back. Before the feed ends, the blast sends MÍM-0 windborne. View yields to static. |
[ END LOG ]
AFTERWORD
mlloyd@OSCP:~$ save OSCP:/mlloyd/local--files/drafts
Saving draft…
Draft saved.
mlloyd@OSCP:~$ return --menu
What would you like to do?
mlloyd@OSCP:~$ create new page
Did you seek approval from the
Outpost Protection Office?
If you wish to weave a Narrative Thread, please ensure that you first consult the Threading packet in your Onboarding Digest.
In posting this Thread, you agree to have a review board judge its cohesion levels at a later date. Refrain from weaving any Thread that is:
- of insubstantial quality;
- marginalia of an existing Thread;
- expected to create “Narrativic Interference” with an existing Thread.
If found in violation, a supervisor will remove your Thread, and the nature of your approval process will be subject to an audit.
If you have read the necessary materials,
you may continue.
By Jr. Xenocartographer Morgan Lloyd
You might cast aspersions at the idea that Narratives can have a real effect on our daily lives. At Macrocosmic Research Outpost-327, however, they’re about as real as the linoleum tiles that line the floor under our boots. They’re the canned air we breathe and the preservative-laden spreads that we slather our bread with.
Because, when I talk about Narratives, what I refer to is the tapestry that lays a protective barrier between us and certain obliteration at the cusp of material reality. If you think I’m waxing poetic, I’m really not. Out here, in the wastes of the Cosmos, the Narratives we weave are a pillar that helps undergird our very existence.
Still having trouble imagining it? I can’t blame you. If you work for The Foundation, this is probably the first time you’ve even heard of us.
I’ll start from the beginning.
1 The Inner-Space Race
Would you believe me if I said austerity ended the Space Race?
Maybe that’s overly cynical. Without a doubt, though, the interplanetary explorations during the time of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing were achieved in spite of, and not because of, the strict funding of the moment. That same year, NASA received its thinnest, most austerely imposed budgetary arrangement of the entire 1960s. Harsh government budgets led to riskier projects, overburdened researchers, and more unpredictable results. Yet only by appeasing disinterested bureaucrats could you ever reap the rewards that arise from scientific endeavour.
The Foundation—which, itself, was downstream of the funding coming from the United States Congress at the time—learned this the hard way. In 1968, as was then-infamously said:
Every quarter put forward for scientific advancement is one measly penny—or two, when the tides are really rising—coughed up for the parascience R&D drive.
— Dr. Trinity Steyer-Lumley
Foundation Interplanetary Phenomena Division
And this was by no means exceptional. The Foundation found no such luck obtaining funding in the Soviet Union either, where they had their own brand of pathologically motivated austerity.
In truth, the real Space Race was held entirely outside the public eye. When funding fizzled out, The Foundation parried the gut-punch and turned inwards. Inner-Space, as it were.
The Cosmos knows deeper bounds than the Universe, which is but one small part. An important part, mind you—but a part. It’s one in a vast constellation of puzzle pieces which form a broader Macrocosm. Almost all of them invariably orbit the Universe, given its utter immensity. Many are chaotic sub-realities only half-conceived. Some rare few hurtle into the ever-present All-Fire, where they lose -versal coherence and rend apart at Planck-scale, returning to nonexistence. It’s likely that there are some others still, floating transiently over a theoretical substratum dubbed “The Void”. We have no means of knowing what number of those Floaters exist, given we have no means of accessing them.
The Foundation began ahead of the curve. We had already laid the infrastructure for a robust Macrocosmic research project—“SIGHTSEER”—a full decade before the creation of NASA. Beginning shortly after the Second World War, this task required an interdisciplinary operation involving our then-most sophisticated resources.
Other groups would join us in the fray: The full might of the Global Occult Coalition; the elusive Prometheus; desperate thaumaturgists’ guilds searching for the Wanderer’s Library; and a handful of occult initiatives funded by dark money. None could match our head-start.
Come the late 1950s, when the Space Race had gone full-tilt, Foundation resources were slowly siphoned towards that riper pasture. SIGHTSEER was virtually abandoned for some time. Decades later, after the Space Race had transmogrified into an austere molasses, the Inner-Space Race continued.
By then, we were the sole sprinters. It was no surprise: The Macrocosm proves a much less desirable frontier than most.
Before I move on, it’s important to settle the debate. What we are concerned with is not the Multiverse. Only outrageously expensive blockbusters have shown any interest in that concept of late. It might exist, but if it does, we want nothing to do with it. What we’re concerned with is the Macrocosm—an unseen and snaking ecosystem waiting just outside reality. A deep sea of existence only accessible by anomalously bending spacetime ‘til you can expose its hyperdimensional underbelly, then pierce it right through.
2 Ways and Means
With a usable past established, you now have the tools for understanding.
In a treacherous ecology such as the Macrocosm, certain protections are of utmost necessity to traverse, live, and thrive out here. There are numerous physical and paraphysical ways of going about this. But these are not the foundations our protection is laid on.
We rely on the power of Narratives to sustain our lives.
In the past decade or so, a select cadre of whitecoats have theorized automated models that could carry out the same results. Some computer-based noöspheric buffer zone that a technician would tune to a specific volume. It’s as much theoretical as it is deeply annoying. By faking it, you miss the bigger picture. Our Narratives need to be every bit as honest as we can muster. Anything less wouldn’t keep us honest. And honesty is workplace policy.
This Outpost was built inside a Tangent—the name for any offshoot reality passing through the flux of the Macrocosm. Here in the wastes, we can’t rely on the Universe to continue surviving. Simply existing doesn’t cut it; we need to reassert our existence in perpetuity, otherwise the exotic reality all around us will reject us quicker than a jaded lover.
Consider this. Of our 150-member staff, each is an individual—unique—with their own worldview and temperament; their own custom and creed; their own set of feelings and aspirations. The Cosmos recognizes the individual as a constituent aspect of a collective, no less important than the bonds among matter.
Thus: Personal Truths function as fasteners. Biographical mosaics as anchors. Each person—a structural member. The social fabric—concrete.
Every single aspect of our lives becomes strengthened by a continual reassertion of our personal values. Completeness becomes an equal parts passive and active affair. Per the former, we recognize a simple parapharmaceutical solution—a prescription of twice-daily medication that bolsters your memome expression.. memome The complete set of memes that make up a sapient entity's identity and consciousness. Equivalent to a genome. As for the latter: Meditation, physical fitness, reading good books and eating good foods. When we strengthen our vitality and enrich our lives, each individual increases the avowal of their personal Narrative.
Next, we form deep, lasting friendships; sing Kumbaya—
We become storytellers, and create myths about ourselves as a people. As a community. Our Narratives are both real and… woven. Not fake, because every story we tell about ourselves shields against our own obliteration. It is a matter of protection against this foreign ideatic environment that is hostile to our very existence. It is of utmost necessity to combat, on an intrinsic level, this environment and the entities that lurk within it. So, we keep a coherent history, and nurture our shared mythology. Our very own Mythopoeia Section are shepherds to the flock.
But we share in these stories, each of us. Encoded in our minds as though in our cells. Stories project our existence outside ourselves, shaping and reshaping our reality in tangible ways. When hardships fall or disasters strike, these are continuations of our existing Threads—rewoven into slightly different outcomes each time.
Each time we come here, we’re here for a 365-day cycle. There are probes that return to the Universe and relay items, both ways, but taking the jaunt on your own is extremely risky. And sending a Macrocosmic shuttle is costly. And I stress—our Outpost is, like any other, a community. That’s where its power lives.
Because Inner-Space is inside us all.
3 A Knot in the Thread
On the Sunday before last, local date 26 April 2020, we synchronized with reality for one last time. Around midday, we received our final probe. When the probes stopped coming through, our supervisors thought it was dire. It could have even meant catastrophe.
Eventually, bad news would come.
The Veil burst. We don’t have all the details, but projects like ours are being kept quiet until the dust settles. The Masquerade being dealt a blow with enough force to tear it right down could mean any number of potential things. An Occult War, as The Foundation tries desperately to stitch the pieces back together. The end of the current status quo—of relative Normality with a wool over the world’s blind eyes, for better or for worse—and the fundamental shocks that usher in the new one. Or The Foundation, now cast as pariah. A whole bunch of rightfully angry people out there, beating down the doors of every Site.
Who can say?
This is the start of a new Thread. I will attend my station, and I expect that there will be plenty of information to make available when new developments arise.
SIGHTSEER hails over the horizons.
Together, we plot the path.
SURVEY - CATALOGUE - PROLIFERATE
The question “why did this end up in my task feed?” gives way to ”how did this information get out at all?”
K-1’s situation doesn’t sit right. Not her story, per se—how she got here. The entire thing seems awfully convenient. How likely is it for audio to go static precisely when it did? Why couldn’t K-1 pick up the context clues when I could? Traversal disorientation takes its toll, but like that?
I can’t help but feel butterflies when playing back K-1’s testimony of VEILBURST. At first, she sounded battered, and looked the part, too. But from nowhere this urgency took hold in her voice. How could I not believe her? Besides, I haven’t heard evidence to the contrary, and our orders are as they have always been. I’ll have to assume nobody else knows, then.
Still. It’s just too dire to leave unspoken. Which means…