30 September 2016
"What is so important that you cannot even give me a hint outside the Bunker?" IM asked. She and Delta were the only two there, but Delta was positively bouncing up and down with excitement.
"I just got word from my sources in Gamma. The Xenology team managed to crack the alien language."
IM leaned forward. "And they didn't tell us earlier that they were this close?"
"Probably a sudden breakthrough, but there is more. They managed to get an ancient computer system working again and it turns out that the race that built it was known as the 'Ascendancy of Horse'. Wierd name, but that still isn't all." Delta was now grinning very widely.
"Alien technology?" IM guessed, dreading the answer. Whatever they found, Gamma would have her claws on it now.
"Not quite. Close, though. Based on some schematics they found of how the place must have looked originally, they think some of the buildings may be salvagable" Delta said.
"Salvagable? As in can be stripped for usable parts?" IM asked.
"No, as in can be brought back to full operation!"
IM jumped to her feet. "What!? That means Gamma has access to to these facilities now! I knew we pulled out too early, we should have tried to hold those ruins!"
"Calm down, IM. Gamma doesn't have anything. I said those facilities COULD be brought back to full operation, but they are still in really bad condition. It will require equipment and parts that are both hard to come by and, perhaps more importantly, bulky. No way a little Hecate is going to be able to ship all of that within a reasonable amount of time."
"Does it matter how long it takes?" IM responded angrily. "Gamma has full rights to the planet and everything on it. Technological details and such our team could have brought back, but all those facilities are hers and there is nothing we can do about it. What do those facilities even do?"
Delta shrugged. "No idea. Apparently these 'Horse' people have a very strange architecture and there is no way to translate some of the more technical terms. But there are only about seven facilities that can be salvaged. No, the real value of this is going to be how much this keeps Gamma busy and out of our way!"
2 October 2016
Lambda's hands were shaking as she switched off the playback from the recording device that had since that morning been hidden in the Bunker under Swarm Command. She had believed the ruins were perhaps a few stones on top of one another with some scratchings indicative of a sentient society, but now she realized that it was an actual, technological race that had once inhabited the planet.
When IM and Delta were struggling to put together reinforcements for their armed units on First Stop, Lambda had been very tempted to offer her own forces in support, but as she had only recieved word about the reinforcements the morning that the Hudson was due to arrive back, she eventually declined. She never did anything rash, and committing her forces would have involved choosing sides.
Now she wasn't sure whether to regret her decision or feel vindicated for not acting. On the one hand, with her support the Swarm forces would most likely have held out long enough to secure the Facility. On the other, the fact that Gamma now has control over everything that came out of those ruins meant that she had the upper hand again. Sure, Swarm Command felt that Gamma would not be able to exploit her advantage any time soon due to lack of dronepower and equipment, but neither of those were insurmountable obstacles to the unsuspected with few scruples.
What really bothered Lambda was the fact that there was a destroyed, transstellar civilization at all. Firstly, it meant that other transstellar civilizations could exist, and secondly that there was something out there capable of destroying them...
What is really happening:
Ruins finally translated. Ascendancy of Horse, TL 4 with 7 buildings. All in all, a nice little find but hardly anything to get excited about. I think I'm going to SM in an engineering brigade eventually to get started on fixing the buildings. Researching it first takes too long and the Wrix are quite productive and capable.
