A flat-out deception

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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unflattenlie

Every since its inception, the CONCORD Assembly and more specifically the Directive Intelligence Agency (CDIA) has conspired with the Jovians, the State, the Republic, the Empire and the Federation to keep you from discovering the truth. I’m not an ideological pirate, a cultist, an obsessive conspiracy theorist or a mad hatter (where did that expression even come from?) I’m a scientist with privileged access to certain sources who discovered something truly awesome, terrifying or, to some, relieving.

The map interface
Have you ever wondered how – when you connect and interface with your ship – you immediately have access to relatively up-to-date information on all regions in New Eden? Well, I wondered, 4 years ago. That’s when my career at the Center for Advanced Studies (CAS) started. Aurie and I started our careers at their HQ in Cistuvaert and we were signed up for holoreel indexing duty. Yes, the Aurie. At the time, he wasn’t the CEO and he had a face filled with pimples that he used to scratch open when he was nervous (you can still see the scarring), he wasn’t sporting dreadlocks back then either. Anyway, as I said, we were tasked with indexing and securing the CAS holoreel libraries. They figured the Leremblompes and Agoze facilities weren’t safe enough anymore for most of the research that took place there and a lot of reels needed moving for safe-keeping. I’m on a tangent here, but I figure this is important information. So, during this fairly menial task, Aurie uncovered something strange. In an older part of the Leremblompes station, some forgotten old reels (they must have been lying then for at least a decade) had been heavily and remotely encrypted by the CDIA (concord) and I noticed the metadata on them always, either directly or indirectly, referenced cartographic, astrophysical or meta-physical content (including but not limited to clone interfacing, astrometrics, spatial awareness, the likes). When we reported our findings to the CAS, the CDIA was quick to come over to Cistuvaert and question us and our protocols and methods for indexing the reels. What was so sensitive on these reels that the CAS allowed the CDIA to barge in like this and question their employees, let alone claim or even destroy these assets? We never saw those reels again and we tried not to be curious about it, since it wouldn’t be productive anyway and we were still juniors at the CAS, fervently trying to prove our worth. That, and when they questioned us, we saw several marshal battleships sitting at the undock point. We figured they were deadly serious about the data on these reels.

Hounded

Give or take a few months and Aurie had been promoted twice, while I was still getting the slaver hound work. I suspected he made some sort of deal with the CDIA during our interrogation, because I heard less and less from him and he was rumored to do some freelance research work for CONCORD in their much talked about restructuring of the capsuleer skill injection programs. It was around that time they conveniently “debunked” and removed the ‘spatial awareness’ book, among many others also related to the subjects contained in those reels. The fullblown exploration of Anoikis by us capsuleers followed not long after. The seed of curiosity had been watered by my blood, sweat and tears and was given light by the fire of jealous frustration. Its roots had taken place in my heart and this now wild plant had branched all over my mind, drowning out the light of other thoughts. Nothing BUT the classified reels were on my mind. I contacted a merc buddy at Villore Sec Ops (VSOPS) who specialized in covert assignments (infiltration, asset retrieval and decryption tech). Since I had no real prospects and I was getting pretty desperate and obsessed, I promised him a third of my shares if he could deliver me some of the reels the CDIA had taken. I didn’t hear from him for a couple of weeks and I thought the assignment would prove impossible.

Then one day, I believe it was 05.06.YC116, he opened a secure private channel for me to join and had two other SecOps agents with him. I can’t tell you who he was or who was with him in that channel, but they were affiliated with a hidden research branch of the Servant Sisters of Eve (SOE) He had acquired and looked at some of the reels. “What will you do with these?” I didn’t know at the time, so that’s what I told him. He told me that if I accepted them, I could not sell or share the information on them. If I did, he’d kill me and everyone I ever had contact with. I accepted anyway. I guess this is my death note?

I got 5 reels from him. I have no idea if he has more. No idea if there is more deception to all of this. But what I got was truly mind-blowing. I was scared, angered and in disbelief for a great while. The reel inventory I got was this:

I. Influencing spatial awareness
II. The map interface
III. Jovian teachings - New Eden Properties
IV. The Cosmic Egg
V. Meta-physical musings on our finite cosmos

The gist of it

I watched the reels over and over again. The information contained within? I hope you’re prepared for this:

  • The cosmos is finite and New Eden and Anoikis are mostly flat, despite what Aura , your map interface (unflatten, my ass!) and everyone else may tell you.
  • The CONCORD intelligence agency, under the guise of intelligence gathering, organising education programs and brokering information between the Jovians, obscure research groups and the four major factions, the CDIA has been steadily influencing our perception through their education programs and diplomatic efforts ever since it was an embryonic organisation formed by CONCORD in the year YC105.
  • I assume most of the factions are in on it and are actively sowing chaos between capsuleers to keep the overall human population limited, distract us, preserve the finite resources and keep things under their control.
  • The development and maintenance of our map interface is a joined effort between all factions to keep the illusion (flatten / unflatten is a lie, the neverending beta version reinforces our perception of a bloated New Eden)
  • The entire stargate program, especially the alignment of them, is part of the deception
  • We are living in a finite cosmic egg. New Eden is at its core and Anoikis is sparsely positioned at the very edge of this egg.
  • The EVE gate, it is theorized in these reels, has been generated by the precursors to migrate from an even smaller cosmic egg (containing only 1 big star system)
  • The shells of both the precursor and our cosmic eggs are but a collection of unbelievably strong monopolar magnetic fields, several tens of AUs wide, reflecting all particles and radiation, creating the illusion of a grand and infinite cosmos. Our world is a hall of mirrors.
  • The main reason why we don’t have a ‘golden age’ given the state of our technology, is because the major factions, especially CONCORD, SOE and the Jove, are maintaining this illusion, the status quo, a disruptive atmosphere. They aim to divide and deceive.

Their motivation are unknown. Perhaps this is all for the greater good? For our very survival? But what’s the point of maintaining the illusion? I say we demand answers and try to collectively break out of this shell.

The information is now yours. What will you do with it?

EDIT: I’ve been fired on the spot by CAS now after 4 years of hard work.

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Cosmic eggs, eh ? :egg:

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the_real_cosmos

Possibly related:

  • Some have ventured into the space between stargates and instead of being lost in space or having to travel back to the nearest system, they have magically reappeared near stargates
  • If New Eden wasn’t flat, jump bridges wouldn’t work (fact!)
  • Anoikis is programmed cell death induced upon cell detachment from extracellular matrix, behaving as a critical mechanism in preventing adherent-independent cell growth and attachment to an inappropriate matrix, thus avoiding colonizing of distant organs.

Can we then assume that this is the end of days as prophesied by the Amarrians and other cults? Is our cosmic egg approaching some sort of egg death? Is that what happened to the precursors? Their cosmic egg failed and they migrated to a new one through the Eve Gate? Should we try to generate a new gate and will it bring us to an even bigger cosmic egg?

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4

I did never because I knew about the Fluid Router network that spreads throughout the entire gate network. In contrast, I wondered why the data is not more accurate.

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When CONCORD assumed jurisdiction over the FTL-networks, they saw that something was needed to vastly improve methods to regulate the information and, thus, the Communication Relay Commission was called into existence. Methods were devised to allow them to survey large quantities of information. Perfection was found in the capsule technology the Jovians had introduced to the galaxy. Fitted with highly advanced augmentations, the CRC patrols the backbones of the fluid router relays, scanning the communications for breaches and keeping the official CONCORD channels clean and safe of disruptive influences.

The Fluid Router Network, supervised and controlled by CONCORD and the Jovians (gates). How very convenient. What I meant to say was this: Have you ever wondered why its free and open to all? Nothing is free! There are ulterior motives, aside from trying to keep the illusion of an infinite cosmos and unflattened New Eden. The data is more than inaccurate, dear mr. Phycad. It is deceit and misinformation! I cannot discuss more about this particular subject at this point in time. The most sensitive information pertains to the FRN.

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If the plan was to protect finite resources by using capsuleers to keep the population down, then it is an extremely inefficient and stupid idea.

Do you know how many giga-tonnes of iron, cobalt, rare metals, carbon based materials, food stuffs, skilled persons, gold (in electronics and/or on the hulls of one’s finest Amarrian designed ships) and heavy elemental isotopes are destroyed every week? Even just counting the number of baseliner operated combatant ships Capsuleers destroy for bounties, a single pilot can rack up a million ships (with all accompanying goods and skilled persons) destroyed in a year. You know how expensive all that is?

Find a better conspiracy theory.

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Money, time and energy that would otherwise have been invested in the creation of an ideal harmonious and thriving society that could grow far beyond the worlds we have already colonized and exploited? This is no theory, my dear man. I have these reels to prove it! In fact, here’s some more information from the reels:

The strange phenomena found in Anoikis have to do with the shell of our cosmic egg. The strong (impassable) magnetic fields found at the very edge have warped our sense of scale by reflecting and coloring all observations we thought were beyond Anoikis and New Eden. The phenomena have been and are caused by the effects of these strong fields on nearby stars. The stars themselves, as registered by my former employer CAS, resonate at “anomalous” frequencies and the waveforms of their luminosity over time form signatures yet unseen in New Eden! I have separated the pure states of stars found in Anoikis by class and system composition (wave noise from orbiting bodies) what remains is a standing wave shared by all stars in Anoikis. It is also present in New Eden stars, but much, much weaker. The pockets of Anoikis are nearly equidistant from New Eden but hard to triangulate exactly. The decrypted reels, however, combined with my research, clearly show them positioned just inside the shell of our cosmic egg.

CONCORD apparently only became aware of the locator function’s utility in Anoikis after inquiries by Project Compass members. After these inquiries, CONCORD announced that they intended to require all control tower manufacturers to remove the locator function, or at least disable its use in Anoikis. The reasons behind this announcement are unknown.

– Project Compass

I posit that the locators were already sabotaged by the CDIA for ranges beyond that of the New Eden approximated diameter, but when Project Compass was gaining momentum, they decided the risk of the ‘cosmic egg’ discovery was too high and they changed their policy on starbase locator functionality.

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So we’ve gone from the Empires would back keeping the “galaxy is flat” idea secret because it protects finite resources to agreeing said resources might more efficiently be expended elsewhere because the current state of affairs is wasteful.

Stop moving the goal posts and stick with one or the other. You don’t get to both eat your cake and continue to have it.

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I did say “I assume” on that part, not “I know”. One rotten apple does not kill the tree.

To specify what I meant by ‘finite resources’; I was trying to say that the massive expansion of capsuleers (look at our short but explosive history) into New Eden and beyond is threatening to trigger some existentially claustrophobic “end day” mentality, since we don’t yet have the means to go beyond New Eden and Anoikis. Chances are extremely slim that a new Anoikis will pop up soon. Given the rate of colonization and exploitation, killing off entire populations and eachother might be something the factions want us to do so that we can prolong the semi-stable state of affairs and try to maintain the status quo.

Machine I and Machine II have the same type of battery.
Machine I works very efficiently, because all its parts work together perfectly and the wear and tear is distributed between all of them.
Machine II introduces chaos to its inner workings, making it less productive, some parts are worn out faster but others are hardly used.

Of these two machines, which battery (and thus, machine) will last for longer?

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It has its origins in primitive haberdashery techniques in a number of cultures where mercury compounds were used to cure the felt used in hats.

Who?

YOU FOOL, YOU’VE DOOMED US ALL! NOW THE SPEC OPS MERC WILL GO AND KILL… a bunch… of… serially immortal… richer than the dreams of avarice… murderous… psychopa-…

… you know what? Nevermind. Not too worried about some Villore merc.

Good advice! Women like the tight and bubbly ones, you know…

Uhhhhhm… have you considered speaking to a mental health professional?

What?

It’s not. You may not personally pay a fee to use it, but it’s not free. You pay for it in the control CONCORD exerts over your actions. You pay for it in your inability to even register baseliner civilian vessels in space without specific allowances made by agents of the empires. You pay for it by being CONCORDOKKEN’d. And the empires pay for it, quite willingly, in order to keep you in line.

Not enough data to draw conclusions. If Machine II’s wear and tear includes corrosion that impedes electrical draw from the battery, then Machine II’s battery will last longer. If Machine II, on the other hand, has shorts that introduce a more constant draw, then Machine I’s battery will last longer.

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If only I could unmask
the truth would be nice
I like to jest and provoke

#UnflattenIsALie

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Considering your name, I think you’re most likely an instigator of madness.

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Sponsored by DuVolle’s cybernetic nanotech! Perhaps I’m just a maddener of instigation. In any case, judging by your name, you’re horrendous!

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the CDIA has been steadily influencing our perception through their education programs

Considering you got this ‘information’ from reels gained in extraordinary circumstances from supposedly clandestine (and likely suspect/fictitious) sources, have you given any thought to the fact that you have been similarly influenced by what could be considered ‘sensationalist propaganda’?

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Sure, they planted holoreels in some dark corner of our HQ ten years ago in the hopes of someone snooping around in the massive CAS libraries, then counting on said person to put in the effort of sollicitating the help of capable individuals to retrieve or at least decrypt said holoreels. Talk about a long con!

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Oh no. I admit I’d considered the cluster something of a walled garden, but I wasn’t expecting this…and I was expecting the Gate at the edge, not the center.

This is troublesome.

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Astounding.

There’s more. I think the wayward and liberal Theology Council and liberal corporations like PIE and SFRIM have been conspiring with the CAS to promote an unbounded, non-flat universe. Think about it: if the universe were unbounded and non-flat, then there is no possibility of it ever being Reclaimed in finite time, and so the wayward, liberal, anti-Reclaiming view of the current Amarrian regime would be justified.

But if the universe were flat and bounded by an egg, then it could be Reclaimed in its entirety in the lifetime of either us or some future Amarrians, and people would be more apt to question why the Reclaiming was not making any progress.

Would a holy and righteous God be asking us to do the impossible?

“I give to you the destiny of Faith,
And you will bring its message to every planet of every star in the heavens:
Go forth, conquer in my Name, and reclaim that which I have given.”
The Scriptures, Book of Reclaiming 22:13

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So, if we’re stuck in an egg, one would assume that it’s because we’re developing or being contained. I would prefer to think that it’s a little of both. A construct, if it has a purpose, will have ways of communicating directives to its participant consciousness. So we need to figure out the next best course of action in all of this.

Usually I start from the premise that Life is good, let’s face it…we’re addicted to the stuff, lol…after starting from this assumption we follow the intimations from fate to conclude directives from clues all around us, using our objectivity. Even if reality is not objective we come into this world with only our mind, and even ownership of the mind and control of its thoughts is uncertain according to several ancient religions.

The Amarr believe that there is a division between the worthy and the unworthy, this is the very specific set of doctrines which has caused the divide between various Amarr sub-cults, as no two theologians seems to agree completely on what “God” wants in his “worthy”…

Personally I think God is just the human collective unconscious, so what we really need to know is…well…ourselves…Gnothi Seauton. The Jovians fell to their own unconscious ignorance. While they attempted to hack away the inessentials and achieve gnosis on behalf of humanity, macrocosmically, they ended up throwing away their own viability in the process.

While a happiness that is attained by culling the unworthy may not sound nice to our sensibilities, if that equality itself is unnatural and impossible, we need to be able to figure out when to just let some things die and take them out by force if it becomes problematic to the point of irretrievability.

If this world wasn’t going to make it she was never meant to survive to begin with. That may sound harsh but if Nature has taught us anything it’s exactly this. There are many signs that we are meant to continue on to some higher destiny. While it may seem difficult much of this difficulty comes from unconscious ignorance. And it isn’t so hard to work with Nature. She has only ever asked us to follow the rules that are already in place since the very beginning; it’s up to us to figure out what those rules are.

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Whelp, I’ve had just about enough stupid for today.

:confused: :gun:

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Seconded.

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