What is the true legacy of Hilen Tukoss?
When the Doctor’s messages on the IGS five years ago concluded, many suspected that he would soon arrive at Site One in Eram and offer some explanation as to the nature of the Drifters’ appearance and actions in New Eden; however, he never arrived.
Time went on, and new developments continued to overshadow this one-of-many mysteries of our time - until analysis performed by subsidiaries of one Capsuleer revealed that, while the second-to-last transmission was sent at quite a distance from New Eden, the Doctor’s final message was broadcast from within his destination system, a stone’s throw from Eifyr & Co. station in Eram.
The concealment of the far earlier warning Tukoss had sent, his disavowment and stripping-of-citizenship by Zainou just days after his final transmission was received, the fervor with which the DED pursued the sample recovered from the Doctor’s corpse discovered in Redoubt, Eifyr’s role in the founding of the Upwell Consortium, the novel technologies released by Upwell in the years since; the revelation of Tukoss’s final disappearance has been the trigger for renewed speculation concerning all of this and far more.
In light of that, I posit the following:
Doctor Hilen Tukoss, arriving in Eram in control of a Sleeper or Drifter vessel and carrying vital information, was intercepted by agents of Eifyr & Co. a short time after broadcasting his final transmission outside the Eifyr station in late February YC117, and spirited away - never being encountered at his destination, Site One. His corporate citizenship was then nullified, making him a non-citizen with “no human rights”, in order to legally extract or utilize whatever information Tukoss had brought with him - in whatever form he had taken - by any means necessary.
When the Doctor’s body was discovered in Redoubt, the DED relentlessly pursued those possessing samples in order to officially declare his death and permit Eifyr & Co. to execute his will. Eifyr then went on to become a founding member of the Upwell Consortium, which made full use of information provided by the officially dead, citizen-of-nowhere Hilen Tukoss in developing their proprietary STANDUP nanoassembly system and the now-ubiquitous Upwell structures and modules marketed to Capsuleers, as they vie for ever-growing influence on the stage of New Eden.
What might the true purpose of the Upwell Consortium be?
What are the goals of those behind it?
Is Hilen Tukoss still alive, in one form or another? Did he wish to reconnect with Eifyr and provide information, or was he instead captured by agents of the corporation preceding his citizenship nullification and official “death”, having perhaps wished to reach Site One and meet with Capsuleers instead?
And what does the Society of Conscious Thought think of Upwell’s doings, given their relatively recent inheritance of knowledge once exclusive to the Jove Directorate, whom they have now succeeded? The Society has subtly supported the independence of Capsuleers since our inception in YC105; what do they make of the far more grandiose support expressed by Upwell in their continued dissemination of novel technologies?
My personal hope is that Dr. Tukoss did in fact return, and that he intentionally moved to hide with Eifyr and willingly provide information - perhaps having taken an actual Drifter body in his escape, making cloning difficult or impossible without proper infrastructure and justifying such a hiding-away. That said, I bitterly consider it to be far more likely that Hilen Tukoss was prevented from arriving in Site One and enacting his plans, whatever they may have been, and was taken in by those who would do - and have done - anything necessary to extract what he had learned or brought with him.
My purpose in suggesting these connections is simply to bring awareness of its possibility to others, to inspire curiosity and discovery. The pursuit of knowledge forever spurs on the asking of questions, even if some would prefer such curiosity to go unanswered. Those who ponder the truth should not be content waiting for knowledge to be spoon-fed to them, revealed at whatever pace another party deems acceptable. Seek to discover, perhaps even in defiance; Arek’Jaalan.
–Uriel
A SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
: 24 OCTOBER YC116
A communication from the long-missing Doctor Hilen Tukoss, who founded the Arek’Jaalan project and who disappeared into Anoikis in YC113 following the discovery and destruction of an abandoned Helios belonging to Lianda Bureau, appears on the Intergalatic Summit. This came shortly following the Sisters of EVE announcement concerning abnormal Sleeper activity, and a short time before the appearance of “Caroline’s Star”.
The message contained various hexadecimal strings denoting syntax determinations not characteristic of human communications, along with an invitation to begin the collection of Jove biomass samples sourced from a YC106 incident in which a Directorate ambassador was disassembled during a test for a matter transmission device. The Doctor’s message stated that a resource drop would soon be established at Eram’s “Site One”, the headquarters of the Arek’Jaalan project. Tukoss stated that for some time he had been unable to communicate, but had remained dedicated to “the research we began together in writeconflict date/current=24/10/116 replace/string=09/07/113 YC113”.
: 4 NOVEMBER YC116
A second message appears, equally rife with hexadecimal strings containing syntax alternates alongside an unknown Anoikis system ident - one of numerous systems the “Doctor” congratulated us recipients for colonizing. This was later discovered to be the ID for Thera.
: 12 NOVEMBER YC116
8 days later, after many capsuleers had obediently journeyed to Eram in order to deposit Jove biomass, a very different third message appears on the Summit. This communication was broken-up but vaguely decipherable, and appeared to warn recipients that Tukoss had been “captured” in some way and was being held somewhere within Anoikis, that Site One was compromised, and that the fate of the Arek’Jaalan project was now in the hands of us capsuleers - with Tukoss imploring us to continue work.
attempted reconstruction of 3rd message
: 26 FEBRUARY YC117
The fourth and final message to the IGS appears, a short time after the Drifters had emerged. This communication was equally broken up, but reconstruction attempts brought out an ominous message - the people once called Sleepers were now, without a doubt, no longer sleeping. Tukoss had been imprisoned by and encountered a form of life both biological and biomechanical in nature - the Drifters - and had managed to secure a “sleeper vessel”, with which he had escaped and was currently inbound to Site One aboard.
attempted reconstruction of 4th message
Using the positional data and pings present in both of the “genuine” messages from Tukoss, it has since been calculated that the Doctor had arrived in Eram, and that his final message had been broadcast from a location approximately 30km off of the Eifyr & Co. station in Eram. However, Hilen Tukoss was never encountered at Site One.
: 6 MARCH YC117
8 days after his final message is recieved, having seemingly never arrived at his destination, Hilen Tukoss is disavowed by his parent corporation, Zainou Biotech, and is stripped of his corporate citizenship, making him a “citizen of nowhere” with “no human rights”.
: 8 MAY YC117
The SCOPE leaks a previously hidden broadcast from Hilen Tukoss, which had been concealed by Eifyr for some time before being uncovered. The Doctor, having discovered an enormous Drifter armada continually amassing at an enormous megastructure in an uncharted Anoikis system, sent this “emergency broadcast” instructing recipients to notify the DED, warning that we were now facing a “possible invasion”. The broadcast was broken up, but showed Hilen Tukoss aboard his vessel broadcasting for as long as possible before being discovered by the Drifters, illuminated by a bright light - at which time the broadcast ceased.
The DED soon released details on the broadcast, stating that while the broadcast was at least 6 months old, CONCORD believed it had potentially been sent over a year prior - placing it far before any of Hilen Tukoss’s messages to the IGS, offering an explanation as to his situation; Hilen Tukoss had been infomorph-napped by the Drifters as his capsule performed its burn scan - somehow intercepting his infomorph and taking it in.
Eifyr had concealed the broadcast since receiving it, and the senior staff of the corporation was brought in for questioning by the DED.
No information as to the nature of these talks was ever made public.
: 8 JUNE YC117
A group of capsuleers discover the body of Hilen Tukoss in close proximity to the exact structure seen in his final broadcast, following the opening of all Drifter Unidentified Wormholes to capsuleer passage.
Upon its recovery, CONCORD demanded the unconditional surrender of a cerebral slice sample retrieved from the Doctor’s body, the sole material recovered from Tukoss’s corpse, to the DED - which escalated drastically in terms of penalties for those involved, until pilot Lucas Raholan acquiesced under the orders of his superiors on July 13th and submitted the sample.
Charges against the capsuleers were dropped, the death of the Doctor was officially confirmed, and Hilen Tukoss’s will - the contents of which have never been revealed - was executed by Eifyr & Co.
: 18 NOVEMBER YC117
The establishment of the Upwell Consortium is announced.
Eifyr & Co. joins as a founding member of the cooperative, and the Consortium announces the development of “Citadels” days later, the first of many structures and modules to employ a novel, proprietary nanoassembly system dubbed “STANDUP”.
March of YC118 sees the Society of Conscious Though inherit the position of the now-defunct Jove Directorate on the Inner Circle of CONCORD.
April of YC118 brings about the official release of Citadels to the public. This deployment also includes the Arcing Vorton Projector, utilizing “the latest developments in the emerging field of spatiotemporal weaponry” to endow the largest Citadels with a weapon system that has been compared to the rumored superweapon once fired over Mekhios by the late Jamyl Sarum.
Simultaneously, the Society of Conscious Thought released new technologies of their own in the forms of the Bosonic Field Generator and the Gravitational Transportation Field Oscillator - two Titan-mounted systems showcasing powerful knowledge of spacetime manipulation that the Society now chose to share with Capsuleers. Additionally, the fruits of initially Amarr-started research into the operating principles of Drifter weapon systems came into Capsuleer hands as well, granting Titans additional combat utility in the form of Reaper and Lance Doomsdays.
Progressing forward to the present day, the Upwell Consortium continues to further empower Capsuleers through the release of novel structures - even going so far as to partially reverse-engineer Triglavian conduit technology in the form of the EXERT Conduit Coupler component that made the Ansiblex Jump Gate a reality.
If the Jove really have departed New Eden then it’s entirely possible we will never get to learn the full history and culture of their civilization, and Uriel is probably one of the best people in the cluster with whom they could share that information.