Sojourn: The Abyss

[Aria_Jenneth]

“Crystalline Isogen-10”

Okay, I’m now pretty sure those enormous crystals we’ve been seeing in the Abyss are in fact solid Isogen-10. And, having worked a bit with the stuff, “solid” is exactly the word-- absurdly so. You know when I first ran into the stuff I was worried it might be unstable? Like, that my ship might explode if someone mishandled a crate of it?

Yeah, not so much. Now, I’m wondering how the Triglavians go about collecting it. Outside the very limited quantities we use for building Triglavian ships and weapons, the stuff doesn’t seem at all easily worked, considering the harsh conditions it grows under-- and the size of the structures it grows into! It’s obviously not rare in the Abyss, but it seems like you might have trouble mining this stuff even with a converted titan doomsday.

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

Environmental changes. Whatever aspect of Abyssal Deadspace that allows it to change state into crystalline Iso-10 is in all likelihood reversed or altered in some fashion in a very localized spot or pattern allowing for harvesting. As Abyssal Deadspace seems to be artificial – there’s nothing in any physics known so far that would even allow for abyssal deadspace to exist naturally – it wouldn’t be a stretch to say they know how to alter local conditions and thus the isogen.

[Arrendis]

If Abyssal deadspace is entirely artificial, though, wouldn’t it make more sense for them to have their isogen mining facilities not in the same structures they’re constructing for combat testing? Seems to me they’d be able to create abyssal pockets just for isogen mining.

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

There’s far too many unknowns in play here for anything to be said with anything even remotely resembling certainty. My hypothesis is entirely untested and unproven, backed by nothing but a hunch, and even if it holds true we have no idea what kind of efforts it takes to create these abyssal deadspace pockets. They might be multitasking in them simply because they’re limited in number and size, or because one use of them benefits another for all we know.

Perhaps their need for Iso-10 is so great that they want to grab all of it, including that which “grows” in their combat arenas. Who knows?

As for entirely artificial, that’s a little too far. Abyssal deadspace is almost certainly not naturally occurring, but nor do I think it’s entirely spun out of thin non-existence by the Triglobytes, rather that it’s an adaptation or changing of a natural phenomenon that doesn’t break every law of physics known to mankind.

There’s to put it mildly too much we can’t even possibly begin to say we know in there, for us to start asserting what would and wouldn’t make sense for the weirdos to be doing. The only certainties it makes sense to work from are the laws of physics, and even that only as a starting point and a solid point of reference.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Hm. Well … but here’s a question I’m not sure CONCORD’s clearly answered at any point, though:

“What is deadspace?”

Historically, I think it’s only ever really been answered instrumentally: it’s space where warp drives don’t work, or only function in a limited way. You can warp in-- but only at a certain spot. You can warp out from anywhere, but your ability to return is hampered.

In some way that’s not entirely clear, this is abnormal space. Some property is different that only affects warp drives (and I seem to remember it used to affect microwarp drives too, until someone figured out how to make them work? That’s intellectual knowledge, though; I can’t remember such a time).

Here’s something else: “intermediate deadspace” is apparently something a bit rarer, but we definitely found a lot of it while chasing the “Deathglow Hunters.” It functioned just like normal deadspace, though-- except for the physical phenomena working differently enough that cthonic attar could form: very strange stuff, and the basis for Deathglow. So, in these spots, whatever effect causes deadspace to form is more pronounced, enough that otherwise-impossible substances can form there. The sites themselves don’t seem unnatural at a glance, though: the Deathglow Hunters found these places, but they seemingly didn’t build them.

Then you have “Abyssal deadspace,” which seems to have super-altered physical properties (isogen-10 and zero point condensate, yes; cthonic attar, no), profound spacetime weirdness, and cannot so far be reached by any known means aside from modifying your warp drive with a Triglavian device.

My shot-in-the-dark guess at this point is that an Abyssal pocket is sort of a pocket universe: a deadspace zone with so MUCH of whatever makes deadspace be deadspace that its properties are altered to a point where it’s not part of normal spacetime anymore. It might even be a totally natural thing; it’s not like we’d necessarily be able to tell if there were … well, basically a series of gods-know-how-many pockets of contorted reality hiding just behind the walls of the observable universe, right?

Or, maybe I’m getting it backward, and deadspace is deadspace precisely because it’s being influenced by an Abyssal pocket?

Anyway, if we could get a clear explanation of what causes deadspace, it seems like that might say something about the Abyss, as well.

[Mizhara_Del_thul]

Can’t say I find any of that objectionable, other than taking it all the way to “pocket universes”. When there’s this much “we don’t know” then the guiding principles should include “keep it simple” as far as that goes. Rule out the most mundane before leaping too far into exotic solutions. If history is any judge, that’s almost always the most productive idea, given just how far beyond reality our imaginations tend to allow us to go.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Does it sound more palatable if I say something like a “budded-off bit of universe”?

We’ve already got loads of stuff that lets us interact with this world in ways that seem to take us somehow outside it, mostly wormholes of one kind and another. We do just transit through them, but is it really such a strange idea that something could cause a bubble of that kind of existence to sort of become encapsulated and separated off from regular spacetime without necessarily wandering off very far?

[Stitcher]

This is the problem with +/-n-dimensional spacetime—and that’s what we’re always dealing with, when it comes to warp drives and jump drives—it’s just so damned unintuitive. It’s tempting to think in terms of depths and shallows and suchlike, but really what we’re dealing with is the distorted shadow that higher-dimensional phenomena cast onto our spacetime.

Or if it’s not unintuitive, then at least our languages aren’t equipped for it. Some cultures didn’t have the word “blue” until they encountered other cultures that did, after all. The fact that so much of Triglavian timekeeping terminology is unintelligible to us points to them having developed their language to handle their environment.

Give it a hundred years, maybe we’ll have adopted their system and it’ll all seem quite natural and normal to us, and today’s cutting-edge understanding of spacetime will seem as quaint as the Luminiferous Ether.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Hm. True.

Anyway, aren’t those crystals amazing? It used to be we couldn’t really get up close, but now it really feels like something’s changed that way. That’s the stuff Triglavian ships use for load-bearing structure in singularity reactors and entropic disintegrators, and there’s enough of it there to make multiple 1:1-scale model Avatars.

[Mahazkei_Vas_Hiigara]

That they are… it’s hard for me to believe that such things existed where it is so empty.

But I will never see for myself. My reaction to being in abyssal deadspace is not an experience I wish to repeat.

Whatever rules determine the existence of the deep, I am more than content to remain far from the edge. Because those rules do not agree with my state of mind.

[Echerie_Saissore]

The comment about the crying Triglavian child is fine. However, it should be noted that I have personally observed more Sleepers and Drifters than actual Triglavians. I feel like they are simply reacting to us, given the partial translations of the datastreams.

Still researching. [S-ICH] will continue its investigation.

[Annisir_Kaugan]

It might be that they use mutaplasmid tech for it. Seed the bacteria in the node and it eats away at the rock producing iso-10 and zpc as a byproduct.

[Aria_Jenneth]

“AAAAAAAAH! 3”

So … it’s easy to get sort of bogged down in rules, running Abyssal filaments. “Hit the webifiers,” or, “hit the neuts,” or whatever.

I just nearly lost my ship again by following some of mine. And then failed to even come close to losing it where I thought I’d really be in trouble.

Chamber 1: Ghosting Damaviks x3, Starving Damaviks x5, Tangling Damavik x1, Harrowing Vedmak x1, Starving Vedmak x1.

I hate Ghosting Damaviks; they make Damaviks generally (including themselves) very hard to kill, but basically can’t kill them with Vedmaks on the field unless I can get them into a glowing cloud because their reps will outpace my attacks. I also hate Starving and Tangling Damaviks, but they can’t die until the Ghosting are down. So, cruisers it is.

And, fool that I am, I assumed the Starving Vedmak had to take priority. Because I hate Starving.

The problem with this assumption is that Starving Vedmaks and Damaviks have the same job, and I wasn’t going to be able to even start clearing the Damaviks for at least a couple minutes. I was going to get my cap zeroed out repeatedly no matter what.

Which meant that when the Starving Vedmak went down, I was out of cap, not going to be able to claw it back with any speed at all, and the Harrowing Vedmak was just getting its disintegrator warmed up.

Escaped with armor damage-- on a Caldari hull, so, yes, that was a bit hairy.

Second room: Ghosting Damavik x1, Starving Vedmak x4 (!!!).

This was almost funny. Coming in was “yikes,” of course, but it turned out I spent basically the whole time with my capacitor empty or about to be empty … and my shield sitting comfortably at well above 50%.

I’d noticed before now that the Triglavians are very good at stuff like cross-rep, energy neutralizing, webbing, and so on, but it seems that whenever they’re focused on something other than killing you … they’re pretty bad at killing you. Me. Whoever they’re shooting at.

They’re specialists. In that first room, if I’d gone for the Harrowing Vedmak first, there’d have been nothing left whose main focus was, “blow it up.”

The experience does nothing to simplify my tactical decision-making, of course, but the sense that this is a test is pretty sharply reinforced. Thinking on your feet: definitely rewarded. Getting stuck into static ways of thinking (and of choosing targets): definitely punished.

In other news: I’ve been trying to use mutaplasmids to upgrade to a stronger afterburner unit. So far I’ve ruined two Corelum C-Type AB units and obtained one very marginal return. I’m starting to think it’d be cheaper to just upgrade straight, but of course then I’d want to upgrade that with mutaplasmids too. And once I get a good one I’ll probably run into something awful and explode my very next time out. Hee.

I want to write something about the ships; I’ve now built and flown each of them, though not necessarily in combat. It’s hard to know what to write, though. They’re … strange. Even beyond the whole thing with using a singularity for a power core.

I’ll have to think if I have anything much really to say, and try writing later.

[Arrendis]

Hmm. I wonder how well that holds once the opposition moves up to Leshak instead of Veds.

[Kalaratiri]

It’s relatively similar.

Starving Leshaks will nuke your cap almost immediately, but they’re not all that damaging. Same basic equivalence for the other specialised roles. Striking Leshaks are definitely the most immediately scary in my experience.

Groups of Leshaks are actually comparatively easy to beat compared to multiple Vedmaks with Damavik support. Starting in a damaged state means you can usually punch one down almost immediately before the RR has long enough to really kick in, and it cascades from there.

[Arrendis]

Yeah, punching one down really isn’t all that much when I’m worried about the groups of eight.

… that still have Vedmak and Damavik support.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Wait. Do Leshaks get Damavik and Vedmak escorts in Chaotic territory?

I was going to say I think I have an answer to your eight Starving. I’m kind of eager to try it actually.

[Arrendis]

It’s been a while, but I do seem to recall it. I’ll have to build another Gila and test.

[Aria_Jenneth]

Up through Raging I haven’t seen such a thing. The Leshaks are often escorted by rogue drones, but never other Triglavian ships.

Actually so far I agree with Kala: Leshaks are dangerous, especially if you take the bait and charge in, but even with massed groups of Starving you can resist the temptation and kite them. I’ve actually started carrying extra Javelin HAMs for that reason.

But Damaviks and Vedmaks, I’ve come to realize, are also dangerous puzzle rooms-- and they’re a more aggressive type of puzzle, one that swiftly comes to you. And if there are Tangling Damaviks in the mix you won’t be going far from where it finds you, not without solving it.

Combining the two would be a level of mean I haven’t yet seen the Triglavians be. It’d be like giving Grip battlecruisers a Ghosting, Starving, and Tangling Damavik escort: you can’t run, you can’t defend, you can’t break free, and something dreadful is coming to eat you.

[Kalaratiri]

@Arrendis

that still have Vedmak and Damavik support.

I am yet to ever see Leshaks with Vedmak support. I have seen individual or paired Damaviks with a group of Leshaks.

@Arrendis

Yeah, punching one down really isn’t all that much when I’m worried about the groups of eight .

My point is you can kill them so fast that you almost never actually have to deal with “eight”. There are also some fairly easy ways to survive massed Starving Leshaks, you just have to be fit for it. If you’re not, you’re going to have a bad time.