Optimism
Okay, so, we’re at a little under 24 hours 'til … well. The Expected. Whatever that turns out to be.
The transmuter unit remains pretty clearly active, though of course exactly how this technology works and on what kind of schedule is more than a bit of a mystery, and probably an Imperial (and by now maybe Republic) state secret.
Would shutting it off help? Would it trigger whatever is going to happen all the faster? Is any star invested in this way even still stable without its transmuter? … It’s hard to say.
I wonder what it’s like on board. Is the staff frantically trying to find a fix? Resigned to their fates? Fighting a vicious battle royale over seats on the last transport home? Already evacuated?
Also hard to say.
… I wonder if even they really know what’s going to happen.
Outside, the world seems pretty full of theories, and a growing number of groups are backing those theories with action.
The Fraternity fortizar under construction (yesterday; it’s now finished);
DNG fortizar under construction, virtually on top of the transmuter (extra points for audacity);
Caladrius fortizar under construction;
Ivy League athanor under construction;
Stimulus fortizar under construction;
And there’ll likely be more by the time this posts. And of course CTRL-V had some other stuff in here to start with.
The idea apparently is that this system’s headed, forcibly, to Pochven. I’m skeptical; Pochven was very purposely, carefully, and systematically “woven,” with lots of prep time and a new, Collective-controlled gate network ready to spring into action the moment the old one closed.
We know Abyssal deadspace goes to varying depths. Deathglow, for example, is a sort of peripheral material that naturally occurs only at a fairly shallow depth still connected to normal spacetime. The actual Abyss, with its spindled asteroids and encysted spacetime bubbles the Triglavians use for arenas, is likely much deeper than Pochven. I’m not sure why anybody thinks this system is likely to land at Pochven’s specific depth.
I also wonder who’ll be left standing by the time the star does its thing tomorrow. Whatever that is. All of this is going to look pretty funny if we all just get obliterated.
I mean, not funny “ha-ha,” but still.
Meantime, the Local environment’s taken on almost a festival atmosphere. The transmuter and the star have been getting a lot of visitors, and there’s been surprisingly little fighting. Wonder if that’ll last.
Some poor soul I don’t think had any idea he was sitting there uncloaked and stationary (and remarkably unexploded). I tried to message him but couldn’t get a response; might have been asleep. Hope he woke up before somebody … hungry … found him.
… such as this somewhat less-poor soul who might or might not have been on the hunt around the transmuter. Didn’t actually see him kill anyone, but he was showing suspect and there were a couple wrecks. It’s how I picked him out of the crowd in the first place.
Innocent Mind’s heron, following the beam towards the star.
A lot of people have been doing this, at least one of whom left a rather useful series of crates, good targets for warping to.
(If you’re watching, though, maybe you could drop something more durable in a spot or two? Jetcans are apparently sturdy enough to hang out in a pretty toasty bit of space for a while but they do kind of expire?)
Thanks to that person, though, I finally got a good sense of what things look like from … a flare’s-eye-view, you might say.
This is the view from well down the beam, looking back towards the transmuter. Looks like that cross-shaped “flare” is just the pattern of the solar plasma flowing back up the beam after all.
Ah, well.
There’s a lot of discussion right now about what sorts of outward signs of the star’s … distress, if that’s the word … we might be seeing. Flickering’s a popular topic. If that’s particular to this star, or to “transmuted” stars generally, maybe that really is the main thing.
I’m not sure. There’s a lot I’m not sure about right now.
Well. A bit under 23 hours to go. I’m trying to decide whether to try to observe from close up, for the best view of what happens to the star even if I don’t survive, or whether to get out to the periphery and try to survive the trip, wherever it goes.
I’ve got a bit to decide, at least.
