A night at the Museum

The Museum Arcana- A site of the Takmahl 

I have again ventured in to the ancient site of the Museum Arcana, supervised under the watchful eyes of the Theology Council. While they watch over the sort of documents and artefacts that are dragged from the ruins of the area they do not step in when one researcher attacks another As such I was able to rely on the assistance of another capsuleer called Grease PaYN. I swear that the other races seem to have the most peculiar names.

After several hours of collection I had a wide range of data for further investigation. There were a number of items the Theology Council impounded but, on the surface they did not seem to hold any data on what i sought.

I have had several weeks to review that data and have learnt quite a bit about the society and culture of the Takmahl but no mention of the artefacts I am looking for. One of the papers I recovered from "Site One" of the Arek'Jaalan project mentions a site near the sun in Aphi which has a site believed to be of significance. It is called "the Labyrinth" Apparantly it is a vast site consisting of multiple connected gates through which a particulart path must be taken to reach the primary location. I feel this is the next logical step in my search, however there is a complication.

The archivist of the project which produced the paper is none other than Dr Valate, of whom I have had to cut myself off due to her associations with the Sabik. I must look into this site in more depth but the paper I obtained for the archives at Site One does not sufficient information for me to be comfortable with an attempt. I need to find greater information

I just hope this is not the end of my search.

Strength through Unity, Unity through Faith

I have had the meeting with my superiors in the Society. It went better than I had thought. It is not my search they have questioned but rather my dealings with Dr Valate. The texts she has sent me are classified as heretical by the Theology Council. This has the potential to raise issues for the Society and for myself.

I have been lucky in that Ms Aspenstar was once a Paladin in service to the Council dealing in just these kinds of issues. With her counsel on how these would be perceived and acted on I know this is accurate and not driven by over reaction. As a result I have turned over the text to the Theology Council for destruction. I have also publicly decried these texts on the Intergalactic Summit so any of the Councils watchers can see.

This does mean I do not have access to what it held but that is a small price to pay. I am sure through direct investigation of the sites in Araz I can discover information without being tainted by their teachings. I had hoped the council would see such ancient writings as beyond that but such is the way of things. However the Council has defended the Empire for this long with it's approach so who am I to question that!

I shall soon launch another expedition into the Museum Arcana and see what I can learn. From hereon I shall ensure to not lose sight of the responsibility I bear to protect the faith in all respects.

Any port in a storm

I have been making some headway. I feel I have gathered sufficient information to move on from the blood cults and pursue my primary hypothesis.

I have made some forays into known Takmahl archaeological sites unfortunately there seems to be a number of others also with an interest. These seem predominantly to be looters rather than true investigation s but that worries me more. I fear the information or items I seek may be taken by some ignorant foreigners or worse.

In searching for the information I have come across another capsuleer with an interest in the Takmahl.   I have had limited communication with her to date but she has provided a copy of some texts which appear to have been sacred to them. I have only just begun to work on them but they are fascinating.

However, this new contact is not without risk. She is a member of a capsuleer faction of the Sabik. They have the temerity to call themselves the church of the crimson savior. To date I have kept her at arms length dealing through the intergalactic summit and contracts. However in order to learn more I may need to take some risks. She is also dealing with a Khanid noble whom appears to be a member of the Tetrimon order. This may be a further contact to cultivate as they may have texts from lost from the scriptures in the past.

A further concern is I seem to have raised concerns amongst the Society. I have been called to a meeting by the Senior members as they wish to discuss what I am doing and the reasons behind. I must make them aware of the need for this search. There has not been a period in our History where we have needed these artifacts more. Having said that they are my betters and I must tread carefully and watch how I proceed. Here I was concerned about the Theology Council but it is a different quarter I needed to have been allaying.

One step forward two steps back

The Altar- A site sacred to the Fundamentalists of the Sabik

Recent events have taken an unusual turn but are lining up with what I've been working on.

I was taking some time in a facility on the Emperor Family station over Amarr with a colleague from the Society, Lunarisse Aspenstar. I had been working on some data when she came by and we were having a discussion about that, the action in Huola and things in general. She had come across some Sabik artifacts that might have been of interest as part of work for another party. During that discussion an Amarrian capsuleer and a Minmatar man entered the establishment. The Matari gentlemen recognised Lunarisse but not the reverse. The capsuleer, whom I shall not name, made the introductions which caused her a great deal of shock. After some explaining a plot like something out of a holofilm was laid out.

It was told that the Covenant had kidnapped this man, who was in fact an Amarr of quite some position within the Theology Council, and an acquaintance of some sort of Lunarisse from her time with them. In some twisted plot to gain access to his contacts and insert a spy into the Council they had skinned him and given his face to one of their men. It was a cosmetic process taken to the extremes. To add horror to horror they had given him a tribals face and skin. The capsuleer had rescued the man while working for the Council in raiding a covenant facility. How this man will ever fit back in Society nor how he can live with himself having been made to wear such a skin is beyond me.

As far fetched as such a scheme sounds, I can not disregard it with the things I have seen in my search covering the facilities of the Covenant. I only fear I may have wiped out such innocents in my cleansing of our space.

This then led me to a further area of my search. I had heard talk of a deadspace pocket with an outpost of strong Fundamentalist Sabik in Araz. This site held sacred and ancient texts which would be greatly beneficial to my work. These were deep within a known as the "Bastion of Blood". I managed to obtain a code which would enable me to access this area. Foolishly I attempted to raid this outpost alone. The initial areas were guarded by the Covenant and whilst numerous posed no significant threat. So when I warped to in the inner enclave I was cautious but not terribly concerned. I have seen that these heretics can not stand up to one entrusted with Faith in God.

The final goal was a building they called their "Altar". I was able to dispatch the patrol near by and send a boarding party to look for the texts. They were successful and returned with several copies of texts including one called "The Apocryphon". While my teams were securing these items I fired on and seriously damaged the temple. I then turned to the generator facility to destroy these heresies for good. However, the patrols guarding that, a mix of frigates and battleships overwhelmed me destroying my ship. I was able to escape in my pod but the ship, the texts and my crew were destroyed.

I have some information which had been backed up prior to the even but not all. I was staggered by the strength and ferocity of the attack and the ships. This is leading me to consider if the fundamentalists of the sabik are more separate from the Covenant than I had thought. Maybe this group holds ancient weapons of strength from the past, or maybe being separated from the depredations of the Covenant they have not been degraded to the same extent.

This is an area upon which I must think and study more. I fear what I have learnt and what I have lost may have set me back further more than I think.

The more we learn the less we know

Things have been chaotic lately. First I have been busy with the establishment of a Starbase for the Society. Once that was settled, research and mining various databases for information has taken much time.

I had established a few leads but the reformation had removed much information from the period I am investigating. I'm sure this is for good reason but it increases the challenge of my search somewhat. To that end I searched a number of sources for sites of significance to both the Blood Raiders and the Sani Sabik.

This I have had to do carefully. The last thing I wish to do is cause any alerts or flags by the Theology Council and Ministry of Internal Order for looking too hard at heretical texts or information on Galnet. I am a loyal and Pious man and have no desire to cause any such disruption. As such I am careful in my search terms and the way I couch my requests with any Archivists.

However I did start to raise some leads of a site of significance to the raiders. The site named "The Cauldron" seemed to appear in a number of recently intercepted messages and in writings going back into antiquity. All I could find about it seemed to indicate a high level of excitement about what went on there and the writers always seemed in awe of the activities. They were always couched in terms of holy significance and religious epiphany. It rested in the Araz Constellation, which again matched my belief that my search is tied with the exodus of the first Sabik. Throught the Constellation are many sites that link back into the past and some that continue to be used to this day, thousands of years later. I thought this site was promising and must give me some information on my search at the very least.

I raised my crew and voyaged to Araz and searched for the location. This took some days but at last I was able to detect a number of raider vessels coming and going from a site. It had strong magnetometric readings indicating a large station of some kind and metals indicative of an ancient structure. Awaiting a relatively quiet period I warped into site and was amazed and disgusted by what I found.

Rather than a site of a repository of heretical artifacts and information I was disgusted to discover the site was that of a giant fighting arena. From what I can tell captives would be made to fight to the death and then the blooders would take the victor and perform some act of barbarity in line with their sacrilegious beliefs. I despaired that these creatures would hold such an act so highly and obviously this has been going on for centuries at least. In my anger I destroyed the ships guarding the facility and wrecked as much damage as I could on the hell hole itself.

The Cauldron, a forsaken place of debauched slaughter

I returned to Amarr Prime to pray in the Basilica to cleanse myself of the horrors I had seen. For all that I am learning and discovering on the beliefs of these accursed people each time I am still horrified when I meet the level of depravity they are willing to go to. I begin to fear if I am mistaken, how could such Holy artifacts be in the possession of such evil? I must believe that the current depravities of the Raiders are somehow separate to that at least of the ancient Sabik and that my goals lie forgotten somewhere far from their grasp.

There is no education like adversity.

searching a site of some past destruction

My initial investigations have been underway. I have been searching the route between Amarr Prime and the Araz constellations searching for evidence of the migration of the Takmahl. After several days I was finding much of the detritus of thousands of years of space travel but little of the signs I sought.

At that point I began to look at where I have been travelling. The realisation that I had been in high security space the entire survey struck me. The route was one that has been laid down for centuries and well traveled. Could it be the sites along that way had been picked over in the intervening years? I put down any doubt of the discovery to my original hypothesis that if it had been found there would be tell.

So I decided to take to low security space to conduct my search. This did begin to lift my spirits as I found two sites of archaeological note. One site held the ruins of some past conflict but evidence did not seem to indicate the period I was interested in. The second however turned out to be an ancient cryoship. I have scanned this and taken footage from camera drones sent through the wreckage. This will require some greater analysis but at first look, may have been a later diaspora of the Sani Sabik rather than the original Takmahl.

Alas in my enthusiasm for the search I let down my guard for a moment. In the cutthroat world of the lawless territories this was all that was needed. Another capsuleer had tracked me down and I was attacked. A fierce battle between a pirate Proteus and my Legion ensued but alas I my ship was rigged for exploration with limited self defence. Despite this the "Omid" held up well but was lost.

While the Strategic cruisers that have come from the exploration of Anoikis have been a great boon they have a significant drawback. There is something about mating the capsule with their interface that causes a great neural shock on the occasion of the ships destruction. This feedback has left me unsteady so the last day I spent quietly visiting the trade hubs of Amarr and Jita to obtain a replacement for my ship and her equipment. This I have achieved and taken her out for a shake down trip. I discovered a wormhole to distant Aridia. On passing through the wormhole the unease and slight discomfort from the loss of my ship passed and I felt myself once more. I do not know why but have taken it as a sign of the Lord of his satisfaction that I have begun my search once more.

Scanning the remains of an ancient cryoship for information

I shall take some days to review the data I have obtained and review what I have discovered so far. While there has been some adversity I can not but feel elated that the background research is paying out and the physical steps down this path has begun.

Inquiry is fatal to certainty

I have made it to Site One. Crossing the war zone in the Bleak Lands was a challenge in both directions but I was able to avoid both the tribalists and Pirates despite their gate camps.

There were no capsuleers present but a considerable baseliner staff. They were most helpful finding me quarters and facilitating my research. I ended up staying at the for three days going over their libraries and the results of the many research teams that had once been busy here. It seemed that use of the facilities and the large scale research had petered off. I can only speculate if this is the result of the Empyrean war or some other aspect has drawn capsuleers away. I have obtained copies of all the research which pertains to the Takmahl, and more besides. You never know how one thing may lead to another. 

While I have not discovered any significant breakthrough in my search things do seem to indicate the Takmahl were indeed highly proficient in cybernetics and bioengineering. These support the possibilities that they had access to the Ametat and Avetat and have built this in building their own civilization. That they seemed to have progressed from a group of settlers to a high technology multi star system civilization implies, to me at least, that they had something to guide them. From their abhorrent practices it could not have been God, but perverting the gifts of the Sefrim? We shall see. Something has propelled them beyond their means, even if I do not find what I seek mayhaps I will find something that will help against the Sani sabik.

It appears the next stage of my journey is in the Araz constellation, I am planning some small scale investigation but I may soon need seek the aid of the Society. 

leaving Site One