106 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
106 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
Transmission Log - Orestes
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Author: Navy
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---------------------------------------------------------------
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Auto-generating preface...
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A log from NAVY. He writes of a close companionship with RUBY. He
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mentions something about a room.
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The transmission logs have been unusually sparse recently.
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According to my records, this is the first one in four months. I
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could've sworn it was more like four days. But, I'm not in the
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habit of swearing, being made of silicon and all...
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The data anomalies I spoke of last time have still been
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occurring, to an even greater degree. I'm still running my
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decryption script on RUBY's QEC. Apparently this has been
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on-going for almost five months. Should be finishing up soon,
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although it's been hanging at 98% complete since PINK's last log,
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four months ago.
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-END-OF-PREFACE-
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---------------------------------------------------------------
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RUBY's been here for six months now. It took me a long time to
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trust her, but I'm so glad I finally did.
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We eventually got talking about the crystals. She was actually
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interested in what I had to say about them. She believes me. It
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felt so good to have someone on my side again. It's been so long.
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Yesterday, she travelled with me to the site where the previous
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researchers (worshipers?) had written their inscriptions about
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the crystals all those millennia ago. She couldn't read the
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language either, unfortunately, but she knew someone from her
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home outpost who would be able to work on a translation. I showed
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her my own attempts and she was genuinely impressed.
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This morning, she received a reply from her home. It was
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disappointing at first.
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The people from her outpost were already familiar with the
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language. Apparently, it's completely dead and forgotten. Almost
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no one knows who its original users were.
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Yes, /almost/ no one, because one translation does already exist
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in the universe.
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The text that is written here, four kilometers from Orestes, has
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also been found on two other planets in the universe. All three
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planets are light years apart from each other, and share no
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common characteristics apart from having these inscriptions.
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It sounds a bit weird. According to RUBY, all the texts are
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near-identical, and seem to have been written around the
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same time.
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The text itself is nothing special, it's just a three meter by
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two meter block of lines and some spirals. Quite economical, and
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probably easy to memorize and copy. The closest analogue to its
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character is something called Ogham writing which was used on
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Earth - the European continent to be exact - sometime during the
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medieval period.
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Anyway, the one 'translation' that does exist is found on the
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rock next to one of these texts on another planet, and appears to
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have been written quite recently. Because it is so recent, the
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translator at RUBY's outpost doubts its validity. He reckons
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someone passing through just scrawled it on the next rock for the
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sake of writing something.
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But, reading what they wrote it feels like the person really did
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understand the language because...well...you can read for yourself:
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BRANCHING OUTWARD MEANS
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BURROWING INWARD TOO
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OUTWARD RED STARS
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INWARD A ROOM
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A ROOM CONTAINS MANY THINGS
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WHATEVER YOUR HEART DESIRES
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I mean, that has to be about the crystals, right? They are red.
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They are like 'branches'. Which means, there must be some kind of
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'room' somewhere on this planet. Somewhere beneath the surface
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probably. I bet it contains the secret of the crystals.
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RUBY mostly agrees with her translator-friend, but I can't blame
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her for that. I don't care if nobody else believes this message.
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In fact, I don't want them to believe it, for now. I intend to
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find the room myself. There must be a way.
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----------------------------------------------------------------
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Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator
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Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing
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systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between
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the Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.
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Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).
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Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.
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----------------------------------------------------------------
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