I initially considered conspicuous similarities between disparate Sleeper and Talocan installations merely evidence of efficient fabrication processes. However, industrial standardization poorly explains similarities in natural landmarks. While a site may benefit from such formations, it rises into high improbability the ancients manufactured them to precise order.
For some time, even natural similarities provoked only idle curiosity in me. However, flying between three instances of perimeter hangars in J103619, I began to feel the experience resembled that of deja vu. As I have been documenting descents into rabbit holes more carefully recently, the resulting imagery has now built into something of a coherent story. With respect to the hangar instances, while the time of image capture I had not developed notions of temporal shattering, identical landmarks do begin to emerge from the imagery.
Perimeter Hangar A
Perimeter Hangar B
Perimeter Hangar C
The formation behind the hangar in particular triggered my sense of repeating the same experience as I warped between sites. It was, however, the Outpost Frontier Stronghold that led to a belief these were not separate constructs, but the same construct shattered into constituent pieces of its time stream and reassembled in our present age (or, perhaps, some age we perceive as “ours” upon entering W-space). An enveloping energy storm, and a huge asteroid embedded within its own storm, stand as the most notable features of Outpost Frontier Stronghold:
Outpost Frontier Stronghold A
Outpost Frontier Stronghold B
Outpost Frontier Stronghold C
Beyond the coincidence of an identical giant asteroid paired with it in every instance, the physical relationship between the stronghold and the asteroid remained consistent across sites.
Tantalized, I took great care documenting the next installation, which possessed features particularly well suited to comparison. The Fortification Frontier Stronghold consistently appeared with a crescent asteroid belt; and conveniently, J161854 included a distant event horizon. It was therefore possible to line each stronghold and crescent up with that distant point. I centered camera drones on the main installation, backed out, and rotated the field such that the event horizon remained in the same part of the image.
Fortification Frontier Stronghold A
Fortification Frontier Stronghold B
Fortification Frontier Stronghold C
The spikes of each facility line up with the event horizon and asteroid crescent. The slightly different appearance of the asteroids and plasma orbs may be attributed to their individual rotation cycles at image capture time. Though I have imaged only three sites, there were in fact seven in J161854 at the time of documentation.
With these new insights, I thought back to a Talocan quarantine installation I encountered some time earlier. One particular feature of that site now stood out in my mind: the static gate. I have encountered two versions of this gate: one which appeared inactive, and one which appeared embroiled in an energetic storm very much like that around Outpost Frontier Stronghold.
Talocan Static Gate (In-Active)
Talocan Static Gate (Active)
A space-time rift appears embedded within the storm of the quarantine site's "active" gate. Such a rift was not present in the storms engulfing Outpost Frontier Stronghold, leading me to believe the effect was stronger in the Talocan site. However, it was also far more contained, and so perhaps the Talocan Disruption Tower limits the spread of these storms:
Talocan Disruption Tower
Attempts to approach the space-time rift came to naught. As a ship (in this case, the pod of a faithful Lupe Sebiestor) closed with the rift, forward velocity slowed until further progress became impossible roughly 65 meters from target.
I submit a cataclysmic event fragmented space-time for these ancient installations. Rather than being separated by moments in time, and contained within a consistent space, they are now contained within a consistent time – but separated by space. Imagine entering a room, and happening upon a version of yourself returning from later in your own journey. As a candidate for that cataclysmic event, I point to events surrounding the Seylin Incident. Space and time are closely related.
Shattering one will shatter the other.
How might this work? The explosion in our present made use of an infrastructure built in the distant past. The blast was so powerful, it traveled not only through space, but back to the moment of its creation. Indeed, perhaps the detonation we witnessed was the doom of those ancients who enabled it. I cannot help but see parallels with myths my Faith, where God destroyed Babel for building too far, too fast.
Tangential Post Script
The Drake I used to extract archaeological samples from a coronation platform during one of my investigations has begun exhibiting strange behavior in many virtual reality interface processes. “Liquid” filaments slip in and out of renderings unpredictably, now. However, there has been no adverse impact on system performance (other than the distraction caused by observing their “playful” antics). Although my electronics and computer skills are reasonably developed, I am at this time unable to isolate or otherwise identify the source of these “virtual jellyfish.”
