First Contact

Chapter 947: The Setting Sun

*After twelve years of archeological examination researchers and scientists had verified the existence of something referred to in ancient ruins as "The Traveler's Path" as a way to the worlds and systems of the Forerunners knows as The Terror.*

As stated in previous segments of this report, "The Terror" is believed to be linguistic and mythological drift concepts for those known as "Terrans", as they were from the planet Terra in the Sol System.

Terrans were known to be highly aggressive, warlike, expansionist, capable of fielding huge armadas as well as vast amounts of ground forces. Most records found, including those discovered in relics and ruins, point at a two thousand year period of time well before the Current Age, that the Terrans were ascendant and the dominating force in the Galaxy. The era show that the Terrans existed in an area toward the far third of the galactic spur. Investigations into that area shows that at one time the Terrans led the (apt named) "Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems" against the Unified Council of the Lanaktallan as well as against what records and artifacts show as massive robotic war machines.

What force destroyed the Terrans is largely unknown, although some writings refer to them as the "Atrekna" or one of the original Precursor Races from the ancient Precursor war some 125 million years ago.

How this was done is completely unknown.

The aptly named "Terran Xenocide Event" did not completely eliminate every last Terran everywhere. Records show that some Terrans survived up to several hundred years after the Terran Xenocide Event. However, as a galactic or interstellar power, the Terrans were completely nullified.

While some may insist that since the Atrekna are the ones that eliminate the Terrans, then perhaps those seeking power should seek out Atrekna technology.

However, while the vast majority of the Terrans were killed and they never truly recovered, eventually going extinct within a few centuries, there are no Atrekna left.

There are no Atrekna ruins beyond battlefield debris that a careful archeologist might discover.

Evidence carefully gathered all agree on one thing.

It was not the entire Confederacy that completely and totally wiped out the Atrekna.

It was the Terrans.

A few hundred Terrans were able to totally eradicate all Atrekna in the Galactic Spur.

Thus, this report insists that it is Terran weaponry that should be sought after.

To this effect, this panel suggests that following the legends of Nakteti the Traveler, who was known to travel to Terra and beyond, would be the most reasonable course of action. - Report on "Second Precursor War Artifact and Weaponry Recovery", 3522 Current Age

The site was found on an uninhabited world with no life forms capable of sapience. Ecology was in the recovery phase, the majority of wildlife had undergone mass evolutionary changes to survive a catastrophic die-off event.

Sediment flow had covered the site in dirt and sandstone. The bottom layers of sandstone gave us an approximate date of 25,000 to 35,000 years old. The site was obviously not of that world's origin. Excavation showed that the site was the product of an advanced civilization.

Primarily: The Terran Confederacy of Aligned Systems

Specifically: The Terrans themselves.

Once site excavators realized it was a Terran dig, they immediately withdrew and summoned security to guard them. Once security and emergency evacuation was in place, they began to excavate.

Heavy combat armors were present, as were military vehicles ranging from robotic strength assistance exo-skeletons to heavy assault infantry power armor. There were sixteen buildings that made up the site, as well as a fortified wall.

All were primarily forged with Substance-T. As you well know, Substance-T is psychically malleable and only appears in large amounts near a Terran site.

The site was, to be honest, the most perfectly preserved Terran dig site ever recorded. Within the power armors, even the vehicles, were the dessicated remains of Terrans, preserved nearly intact due to the atmospheric and environmental sealing of the vehicles and armor.

The site personnel were ecstatic over the discovery.

The wall had kept Terran bodies that were within the large open spaces between the buildings from washing away, meaning they were everywhere. Bone and mechanical implants were everywhere, all of them in almost perfect condition when it comes to fossilized remains.

Sediment layers showed that near the time of death, archeologically speaking, the bodies had been coated with a thick layer of volcanic dust. The presence of high levels of radiation in the dust showed that fission and fusion weapons designed to output radioactive byproducts had been used. Again, consistent with Terran ruins of the Forerunner Era.

While the dig site personnel were being urged by military command to move on quickly to the buildings themselves, the archeologists at the site pointed out that the buildings were hermetically sealed. It appears that the site had been prepared for a fission or fusion attack.

Even the remains pointed at such a response. Protective posture of laying face down, head toward blast, hands covered the neck. As was stated, volcanic ash covered the remains and the presence of the walls prevented water from washing the bodies to another location.

In some cases the volcanic ash had created a kind of 'cast' that preserved even the appearance of the unarmored Forerunners.

Not only were Terrans present, but the species that made up the Confederacy. From Treana'ad to Mantid to Pubvians were discovered, entombed in radioactive volcanic ash.

Bodies, weapons, armor, other esoteric equipment.

Several members of the excavation team were psychically sensitive and this fact is vital to this report.

Once Terran remains were uncovered, the psychically sensitive began hearing whispers just at the edge of their hearing. Some began having slight visual hallucinations of shadows warping, red eyes staring at them from the darkness. Others began having terrible nightmares they could not remember.

Attached is medical data showing that during their dream states their flight or surrender instincts were heavily engaged. Some members suffered adrenaline poisoning as their own bodies exceeded their tolerance and even their production limits.

Three weeks into cataloguing and removing the remains of those Forerunners who died inside the wall, one psychically sensitive member was able to inform everyone of what was being whispered upon touching the remains of a Terran.

That member of the archeological dig stated that they heard an angry roar that they understood. A roar made up of four words into a single concept.

It was when they had physically touched the remains instead of relying on robotic or tool assist recovery.

The four words were simple: DO NOT TOUCH ME!

Another reported hearing the whisper: Victory or Death.

Others reported hearing: Either is fine.

Members of the archeological team of that species immediately quit the dig and chose to be removed from the planet.

Military oversight was still insisting on figuring out a wall to access the site's buildings.

The excavation leaders ordered the ground team to attempt to access the facility.

At 0840 Hours local time, at the dig site, just after sunrise, the ground team reported that they had managed to breach the facility and found that, despite all expectations and every other dig, the facility still had power.

At 0852 orbital ships recorded a massive phasic pulse from the site.

At 0907 Hours local time, military security reported being under attack from heavy weaponry.

At 0911 Hours local time, a massive fission driven explosion was detected.

At 0917 climate changes began occuring rapidly as cloud cover moved in, driven by winds in excess of two hundred kilometers and hour.

At 0923 all contact was lost with ground assets.

At 0933 orbital ships began taking missile and direct point to point kinetic impacts.

At 0933.4 orbital ships began sustaining heavy damage

At 0944 orbital warships found their shielding failing.

At 0935 the Unresistable Force of Domination took a barrage of kinetic weaponry and began to break up.

At 0937 multiple ships began to break up.

At 0938 three ships managed to get to jumpspace, despite suffering heavy damage. Four ships, unarmed research vessels, managed to reach jumpspace before taking any damage.

At 0948 the surface weaponry ceased fire.

At 0950 archeological head ordered the research ships in to perform SAR on any lifepods.

At 1432 Local Standard Time (Dig Site) it was decided to cease all archeological efforts.

Attached is energy profiles as well as other data gathered during the sudden and overwhelming attack.

Whatever defended that facility defends it still. It is the advice of the Grand Imperial Historical Preservation and Discovery Society that this site be placed off limits. -- Archeological Report, 3,348 Current Era

The first clue we needed to decipher the Warsteel Forerunner artifacts was simple biology. While most races in the Galactic Spur see a wide portion of the spectrum, deep into infrared and ultraviolet as well as red-green and blue-yellow, the so called "Warsteel Forerunners" AKA the Terror, could only see approximately 850-900 nanometers of the light spectrum.

It was this that gave us the idea to create visual material that would emulate what the Terror could see.

The first thing researchers noticed was the high level of detail, at long distances, that the Terror could see. While most species have fairly limited long distance sight, due to spectrum density, the fact that the Terror only saw along that limited slice, eliminated the very prevalent high energy extremes as well as eliminating confusing and muddled colors.

These are images of how a Terror would see our species. Note the high detail of physical appearances without the coloration our species has. The next images are how clear an image was to Terror visual organs at different distances compared to what nearly every other race sees. Note that microwave is invisible to Terror visual organs.

Yes, you are seeing the data correctly, a Terror, with unassisted optics, can identify objects at distances of hundreds of meters. Objects retain their basic shapes at long distances.

While other researchers have insisted that the microwave, radar, and x-ray sensors on the armor were to enhance the Terror's vision through mechanical means is if their faceplate was open, our team determined that the Terror could not see in these spectrum and created armor systems that would allow them to gather data.

Additionally, the microwave and other high energy arrays were not visual in nature, but rather a type of communication array.

With this information in hand, research teams began accessing Terror data systems. While the encoding codexes, based on Base-10 and binary math, have been long discovered, teams have long assumed that the codexes were incomplete due to what they presumed was a loss of data.

Additional teams began going over the "known" data about the Terror, discarding all preconceived notions. It was determined that Terror sense of smell and audio hearing ranges were fairly wide. However, they were very sensitive while also robust.

Terror hearing was between -35 decibels to 175 decibels, although the latter would cause pain and audio sensory organ damage, between, interestingly enough, 20 Hertz to 20 Kilohertz. This means that the Terror would be able to hear our 18KHz wireless communication systems with the unaided ear.

With all of that taken into account, access to systems was achieved.

Limited testing was done upon recovered data systems from Terror armor and vehicle computer memory systems. While we still do not understand how their molecular circuitry systems work and are so dense, enough debris has been recovered to allow researchers to use Terror technology to access other Terror technology.

And that, gentlefemales, is why all of you have been brought here today.

Hidden within a computer system was a dormant virtual intelligence. We have been able to access this system and, while quite advanced, we believe it is a weighted bias table decision tree system without any true sapience or sentience.

Today, we will show you this system, which we have taught our language.

Do not worry, our computer systems are guarded by high encryption, a ten digit passcode, with 8-bit encryption, which would take q-bit computers nearly 12 million years to crack.

Gentlefemales, may I present, the Terror Virtual Intelligence Jabberwok and its complimentary Virtual Intelligence Warboi 116c11ff04a! - Last record of the planet Cres.talkrik before Mantid Glassing. Record: 2,891 Current Era, Glassing Date: 2,897

Nakteti tapped the fingers of her right catching hand on the edge of the command chair, staring at the screen. On it was displayed a Confederacy Forward Logistics Supply and Refit Base that was floating in the dark and silence of a red giant system most of the way into the Long Dark and only roughly two hundred light years from the edge of Tomb World Space.

The station had power, it answered to queries, giving back a station alpha-numeric identifier, reporting all systems nominal.

But Nakteti knew in the decades since the end of the Second Precursor War places like that station had become very very dangerous.

Watchful Code 993149 AKA "Chuck" had gone ahead. First in a remote drone carrying enough computing power to allow him to operate at maximum efficiency just from the remote. Then, once he had accessed a maintenance dataport on the hull, he had entered the station's system.

That was two hours ago.

An hour ago Nakteti had ordered the ship's limited VI to cut all linkages to inbound data communications and to go to purely optical as well as to ignore any incoming visual light flickering communications.

She had sent Surscee and Magnus to throw the breakers and physically cut the datalinks.

"There. He's moving," Magnus said, tapping his blade with the whetstone.

"Open the bay door to allow him to come in. I want full EM jamming inside the bay," Nakteti said.

She thought, briefly, about how she was tense, but nothing more than just twisting her hands on her gripping stick. Years prior, before the Precursor Autonomous War Machine Conflict, she would have in a near panic by the tension.

How we've changed, she thought to herself as she watched the drone slowly and stately return.

"He's docked," Surscee said.

"Magnus, I want you to go down with a sharpened chunk of rebar and see if he's intact. If he isn't, well, you know what to do," Nakteti said.

Magnus just grinned and stood up, tucking the whetstone into a pocket as he headed for the lift, not bothering to sheathe his blade.

Nakteti waited long moments.

After nearly an hour the tank flickered, the isolation systems kicked on, and Chuck appeared in the holotank right as Magnus exited the lift and moved over to a chair to sit down and relax.

He looks like someone beat him up, Nakteti thought.

"Station VI and eVI were all maddened," Chuck said. He shook his head. "I managed to destroy them. Not their cold storage backups, I couldn't reach those, but their warm backups and their system reset copies."

"The station?" Nakteti asked.

"Whole system is wide open. It's on M.A.D. operational footing, so virtually everything's unlocked. The eVI was crazy so the nanoforges are all hot and sloppy," Chuck said. He heaved a sigh. "There was a DS inside. I don't know who, they were too badly crazed," he looked despondent for a moment. "They made me kill them."

Nakteti nodded slowly. "My condolence," she said.

"It's for the best, but there's so few of us now, I begged them to let me save them, but it was no use," Chuck said.

Nakteti just nodded again.

"It's safe to dock now," Chuck said. "When we're close enough, I'll jump over and run the systems," he paused. "What are we looking for."

Nakteti opened her datalink and checked the file.

The words burned coldly. Words that had come to her in a dream.

Handed her by Bellona the Grave Bound Beauty.

"Multi-dimensional phase shifting adaptive sensor systems and shielding," she said firmly. She closed the file and looked at Chuck. "And something called 'Redline Drive" and "Redeye Systems" should be in there."

Chuck nodded.

Nakteti turned to the task of moving the It Tastes Sweet toward the station.

"How did you know this thing was here?" Chuck asked.

"Bellona showed it to me," Nakteti said.

Chuck made the sign of the Digital Omnimessiah.

Magnus just started peeling an orange.

Surscee smiled.