Posts Tagged ‘B.P.’

Recapitulation – what happened over the last two years, part I

This is my first post in my blog for over two years.Rest assured, I´ve had good reasons for my decision not to post updates in the time inbetween – but these reasons are past time now.

Maybe you remember, where my last post stopped – after our escape from the prison age called Panuehr, after the destruction of most of our research and of our homebase at that time, Asheten mansion.

As you may recall, the Forberg expedition continued to work in the caverns, this time from an age I can now give the name of – Yoshonah, a beautiful, lush and peaceful age of green hills and meadows.

From this time on , the expedition started to fracture. More and more of its members left for good, many to form their own smaller expeditions, some to return to the surface.
The core team around B.P. Forberg stayed for the moment, but their fundings and ressources dwindled quickly, until they were limited to a few ages they researched.

I was one of those, who broke away. I always have tended to be a loner, and all this turmoil, chaos and mistrust led me to the conclusion, that I should join one of the smaller groups, particularly one, that did a lot of research on my ages and were kind of friends to each other.

It seemed, that the perpetrators of the previous attacks had been expedition members all along, because when the expedition fractured, the attacks came to a sudden halt.

All of that happened in a time frame approximately from January 2013 to June of the same year.

To be continued…

Apologies

Sorry for not posting for so long – a lot going on in the last month, work on the surface, work in the caverns …

The rodents in Afelahn have spawned quickly – at first, there were one or two – now, I estimate their number about a dozen – and they are EVERYWHERE. Had to bring my empty books to Asheten mansion – they nibbled on them and destroyed three.  I´ve instructed the expedition personnel to be careful when visiting Afelahn, so the “plague” doesn´t spread to other ages. We´ve set up mouse traps, but to no avail as of yet … it seems, they are too cautious (or too smart?) to get caught.

We´ve started work on various new ages – most of them are in a very early state of being surveyed, but maybe I can provide some information over the next days and weeks.

Dasharen has proven to be one of the most unstable ages we have access to. Earth quakes have happened a lot over the last weeks, and one time our team was barely able to leave the age without being hurt.

The council will decide tomorrow, if Dasharen will be deemed “unsafe” or not. B.P. is for it, while others are strongly against it… they say, there is so much to learn in this age, that the risks are worth it… I´m not so sure. Is anything worth risking anyones life?

Twenty days

Twenty days since my last post.

I´ve been busy with a lot of things, and finally found time again to keep you updated.

One of the worst things that happened was the theft of one of our Dasharen linking books. It happened two weeks ago, when B.P. brought some linking books to a conference. When he packed together after it had ended, he found the book missing.

So, someone who has access to our conferences must have taken it – unfortunately, nearly all of the expedition members took part in this particular presentation.

Further investigations pending.

About Dasharen: Tom Woods and Shane Kennett have devised a theory about the “big blast” that happened some months ago, when our powermarble experiment exploded rather spectacularly. They suspect the strange electromagnetic fields to be responsible for the energy fluctuation that caused the explosion. So, we  have to be careful with bringing energy devices to this age in the future…

Ah, by the way: I´ve brought some unexpected guests to Afelahn without even noticing.

We were watching animal life in Risoahl, our giant bamboo age, and somehow they must have gotten into one of the bags I had my equipment in.

When I had returned to Afelahn, I heard some chirping sounds – at first, I thought the source of the noise to be outside of the base. But when I moved, I could make out it actually was inside… an unsettling feeling, you know, especially because the creatures in Afelahn I´ve met yet are not very pretty or pleasant. (e.g. the lobsterpede).

Only after I found bite marks on a sandwich I had left on my desk in my office, I knew it had to be some kind of rodent.

Now, I´ve searched through the whole base, but didn´t find anything, albeit hearing these noises from time to time. A least it seems to be smaller than a rat, according to the bite marks… maybe some kind of mouse? Where could it be hiding?

Strange happenings

Today, some strange things happened in several of our ages.

First, we visited Nifehrehn after a break of over one week. When we linked in, we almost immediately recognized it was terribly cold. We linked out again and returned with our maintainer suits on.

Somebody had opened the airlock – letting the cold air from the outside into the complex! Work of months has been destroyed, many instruments and scales again are deeply frozen. Who did that? Who has access to Nifehrehn besides us? The books have been kept safe, nobody inside the expedition could have gone there without anyone noticing. So who was it?

The second strange thing that happened: When I linked to Afelahn today to take measure for the new living quarters I plan to add, the whole place was covered in greenish fog! Panicking, I linked out, fearing the worst. But as my skin didn´t dissolve and I didn´t feel any pain, I returned with a suit. The fog was gone again, and no residue was found.
Whatever it was, it seems to have been harmless – who might play such a sick prank on me? I´ve been scared to death!

The third thing that happened – and this one is REALLY weird – was told by B.P. He and a team had done research in Dasharen, when a huge quake hit. Well, that´s the normal part, at least in this age. But then they looked on the print-outs of the seismographs – and the instruments recorded NOTHING! As if nothing bad had happened.

Could all this phenomena have been caused by Bahro? Who else could have done that?
We are puzzled, and concerned. Trying to keep you updated.

More about Critters

This is the first time I´m posting twice a day. The reason for this is, that quite a lot happened today:

The upgrade of Critter 2 is done – the guys worked restlessly for hours, and managed to get it ready only a few hours ago.

So, now we are preparing everything for our little guys mission.
The maintainer outpost is running and ready, critter 2 is polished and eagerly awaits his… well, you get the idea.

I managed to draw a sketch – as always, please remember, this is not meant to be 100% accurate. I´m a beginner in sketching.

As mentioned, the new encasement is made of deretheni, a light but resistant artificial D’ni stone.

B.P. will link in with his mighty maintainer suit, with critter 2 in his hands. Then he will put it down, and link out again immediately.
The risk is high, and we discussed it a lot – is it worth it? What, if anybody is hurt? The gas is extremely dangerous – will the data be worth it?

Shane Kennett has designed a small receiver, that translates KI signals from other ages into ordinary radio signals, to steer the small vehicle through the age.
Because the KI signal reaches so deep into another age, we can steer it much farther than we could on earth – the small range of the radio receiver can be neglected, it is only centimetres (or inches) away from the KI-receiver.
The only concern are possible interferences from electromagnetic fields in the age itself.

Jack Rowe will steer critter 2 from a control room in Asheten mansion, while a team will take care of B.P. and his suit in the maintainer facility.

Everything is prepared… only 2 hours until we start. I will keep you updated. We should know more tomorrow.

News on Unknown Age 03

Right after I posted my previous post, B.P. came to Afelahn and told me about their discussion about another visit.

Someone suggested to modify one of our “critters” – someone could link in with it, put it on the ground and link out quickly, while the critter could gather data without anyone being endangered unnecessarily.

Of course, the critter almost certainly will be destroyed over time – the aggressive corrosive gas will destroy most materials we know.

Interestingly, the suits materials seem not to be bothered by the gas – on the other side, if the depicted events in the “Book of D’ni” really happened that way, one of the explorers, an averonese, even stepped into a nova while wearing one of the suits – and survived, though he was badly hurt. So the suits should withstand any possible dangers, even the deadliest ones.

Maybe we can apply D’ni materials, for example, deretheni (see the DPWR-Article about this kind of stone) to the critter… we don´t really like the idea of losing one of them.

Yeah, it´s somewhat pathetic, but we grew to like these little fellows.

By the way, I think, I can show you one of my sketches, depicting Critter 01 – bear in mind, however, that my scribbling abilities are somewhat – minor. Don´t expect too much realism :)

Samples our scientists took from the gas sucked into the ventilation system suggest that this is a kind of chemical compound previously unknown on earth. They aren´t even sure, what elements this consists of – not really surprising, it is another age, another dimension after all.
We had had a theoretical discussion some months ago about ages and the astonishing similarities between the elements abundant there – but we also came to the conclusion, that it only was a matter of time, when we would encounter previously unknown matter that doesn´t exist in other ages. This stuff seems to be such matter.
It lost its corrosive capacity after some minutes, and is deemed rather harmless now – but we wouldn´t take a chance, it was sealed in a vacuum vessel (of D’ni origin) and brought to Resehren. In case it breaks and is contaminating its surroundings, the age can be quarantined.

Oh, how time flies…

It’s just two days I made my previous post, and so much has happened! The same day, another bunch of new expedition members arrived, more than 25 people eager to work with us.

They are badly needed, we work on various ages already, and our teams are far-scattered.

Now the expedition consists of more than 80 people.
B.P. held a little speech yesterday in front of the staff in Kurat hood, and suggested, that maybe it was time to move to another, bigger place – Asheten mansion is big, but there isn’t infinite space.

Surprisingly, he approached me after the speech and asked, if I could house some of the expedition members in my base in Afelahn.

I told him, that I haven’t planned it to have bedrooms, kitchens or bath rooms, it is planned to be a working place, not a place for living, after all.
He asked me to think over it.

I’m not sure… the layout of the home base doesn’t allow much comfort.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have company here while working on different projects – and even a bedroom of my own. We’ll see.

Speaking of Afelahn – work has speeded up amazingly. We are almost done with the power room, and have added three more rooms, all of them in one day.
The first is a staircase that leads to a first floor, through a door in Lab I.
Shouldn’t have brought the artwork here so soon, it’s covered in dust right now…

I think, wooden stairs would fit best here.
The second room, at the first floor, is a “waiting room”. Here people can wait and relax, while I’m working in my office (the third room, connected to the waiting room with a small stairway.)
I plan to have some couches, carpets and plants here.

And my office – this will be my own, personal space for writing and stuff. I’ve thought of breaking through the floor and adding a glass floor, so I can watch the garage from up here – not so sure about that, though, because I’m suffering from vertigo, and I don’t know if I could ever be fully relaxed while sitting on a see-through floor…

Maybe I’ll use the idea for a different room.

I plan to excavate another room near the power room – some kind of control room, where I – or someone who is keen with engineering – can control and adjust the machinery and power grid system of the base.

The powermarble is a enormously powerful energy source, that opens a lot of possibilites for future additions to the base.

I’m so amazed to see it all come to fruition – all the work, all the planning and learning – now everyone can see our accomplishments!
Well, not everyone, yet. I’ve decided to postpone the opening of Afelahn to the public – there is a lot of work still to be done, and I want to be sure everyone enjoys the stay (and is safe from any dangers).

Gosh, I just realized I haven’t provided any KI-shot yet… let me see, what I can show you.

There, another of my lamp designs, used for example in the link-in (or entry) room:

Unsettling incident

Yesterday, someone broke into one of the sheds adjacent to Asheten mansion and took equipment and supplies from it. Nothing too important, but still …

The council met immediately after the theft was detected. Teams searched the near vicinity of the mansion, but no clues were found.

This is really disturbing – until now, we hadn’t had any problems with other groups or individuals in D’ni. The list of suspects is long – from surviving D’ni over begrudging explorers to evil Bahro, everyone could have done it. Even our own expedition members could be involved.

For now, the council decided to improve security – cameras  around the mansion, and safer locks will be installed.

I’m thinking of increasing security in Afelahn as well.. at least take the linking book to a safer place. If the culprits are Bahro, of course everything we can do is in vain.

Nevertheless, there are positive news as well.

I’ve brought some samples from other ages to Afelahn, to finally start to work in my new home base, though it still isn’t complete yet.

I’d like to show you some of those samples on KI-shots:

The first image shows a “Star fruit” from Yagee Mohts. It is quite big – approximately the size of a medium pumpkin – and tastes sweet and sour. This one has been primed (right english word?) to last without rotting.

On the second shot you can see a crystal from Eder Kamonee. Do you remember our first, disastrous expedition to that age? If not, I recommend reading the old posts on this blog.

To give you a summary: The crystals of Eder Kamonee are very fragile and sensitive to vibrations – as we found out the hard way, when someone accidently hit one of them, and – well, you could say, hell broke loose on us. Luckily, most of us were only injured lightly, and the age as since been closed for anyone.

Some weeks ago, a small group of expedition members went there in medium maintainer suits, though, and took some samples. After sealing one of the crystals with some kind of artificial wax (forgot, how they called it), Tom Woods gave me this sample for my studies in Afelahn. The wax keeps the crystal from imploding or hurting anyone.

On the third picture you can see a vase we found in one of D’nis lower districts, in a devastated pottery shop. It was one of the only undamaged pieces – not interesting scientifically, but a nice example of D’ni craftsmanship. So I took it to Afelahn and put it into my lab.

Oh, by the way – I nearly forgot to mention the earthquake in Dasharen.

I wasn’t there when it struck, but Alex was. She told us, that it scared them quite a lot, and that one of the hallways broke down, fortunately without injuring anyone. It wasn’t a major quake, but still did some damage.

Keira Bracetty and her team will try to secure the structure in case of more quakes.

B.P. suggested bringing one or two seismographs to the age so we can record the frequency and intensity of future quakes. Might help us to understand the geological status of Dasharen better.

Er’Nirah

As reported, we´ve visited two caterer ages two weeks ago. The one I want to write about this time is Er’Nirah. The whole place is covered by a thick, soft layer of a species of lichen, with a dark red hue, that gives the age a strange, but somewhat appealing color. Nearly every inch of the ground is covered, the few places where it isn´t, I could see barren rock. There seem to be various other lichen, fungi and animals who depend strongly on the red lichen, either by nourishing from it, or seeking shelter in it, or just growing on it.

B.P. gave me some information about the age. As you´ll already have guessed by the name “Er’Nirah”, it was an age of the guild of caterers. And if we aren´t mistaken, the D’ni harvested the red lichen for food – there are some species of lichen here on earth which are edible (but not very tasteful, as far as I´ve read). I´m really curious how it tastes, but first we´ll have to thoroughfully analyze it.

In Afelahn, I did a lot of work the last days. Although the place isn´t quite ready yet, I brought some specimen, so I can start doing my first projects. I`d like to post some of them at the Zoologist-Forum (D’ni Zoological society), so we can do some research on lifeforms together.

And then, I managed (with some help) to design my first lamps for Afelahn (until now, it was lit by makeshift lights). Although I don´t plan the age to be highly aesthetic, they clearly help it in a visual way.

Catering ages

Since the Forberg expedition consists of more and more people, we´ve had a meeting about new food resources and how to acquire them. B.P. told us, that one of the Resehren-ages and another age found in J’taeri had been ages of the guild of caterers. We agreed to visit these ages this weekend – maybe we can obtain some of our food directly from there!

In Afelahn, Tom Woods and I set up lights in most of the rooms in my home base. They are simple and not very pretty, but they´ll do.
Although the age is not complete yet, I´ve decided to start using the base. At first, there´ll be only limited access, for expedition personnel.

I brought a crate full of firemarbles from Dasharen to Afelahn, I´m planning to design some lamp variants for my ages with them.