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The Artefacts of Mystery |
The system YTS 0188183- 114 in the Perseus arm holds a planet that xenoarcheologists from the Hamilton Institute are currently investigating. Evidence present on this world points to an extinct alien race, although the archeological and paleontological evidence is dubious at best. What is not disputed is the presence of an unusual megastructure. On one mountain of that planet there is a great structure, several kilometres high. It is constructed of sapphire and diamond, is self-repairing, and derives energy from both photovoltaics and an internal ultratech power supply the workings of which are still not fully understood.
The local year is more than two hundred standard days long. Each year, this vast mechanism emits a tick. After a period of 144 local years the mechanism sounds a soft gong-like noise. Those who study the mechanism believe that the civilisation which built this mechanism used base twelve, and that after 20,736 local years a small object will appear from a certain door and make a sound. The last effect has not been observed since the discovery of the planet in 9677, and the next occurrence is projected to be several thousand years from now.
Specialists from the Hamiltonian Institute claim that the gong's period was likely to be longer than the lifespan of an individual of the species which built the device, and that the unseen mechanism has a period longer than that of terragen recorded history.
According to some members of the team investigating this culture, the entire edifice was constructed only a few years before its alien makers vanished (to wherever ancient races go) . Almost nothing else remains of the civilisation that is presumed to have built the structure. The artefact seems to be more than a hundred million years old, if estimates based on micrometeorite erosion are correct; this dates it to before the emergence of the Muuh Empire. The Muuh themselves profess no knowledge of this artefact and its makers. There is however heated controversy over whether this and other similar artefacts truly are alien or simply the result of unknown terragen superturing and/or hyperturing AIs, originating from the Sol system perhaps as far back as the pre-First Federation. Similar artefacts by eccentric AI have been found elsewhere, although this example is unusually distant from Sol.
What principle the Eternal Clock was intended by its makers (whether terragen or alien) to embody is still a matter of great controversy. But while arguments rage in the great Institutes of the Inner Sphere, while children are born and great-grandparents die, while new races and clades evolve and vanish, the Eternal Clock continues to tick. And perhaps that is the message it is intended to convey.
The Wandering Flame is believed to have
been created not later than the early Empires era
by an unidentified
Caretaker
God as a didactic device. According to the accompanying media, a
Backyarder
ship after a long period of sub-relativistic travel colonised a planet
they
called "Eden" (not the well-known Inner Sphere world of the same
name!) just as it was about to enter a new Ice Age. The colony
successfully
staved off global cooling - first through deliberate emission of
greenhouse
gases, then through orbital solar mirrors, and finally, as they reached
the
heights of technology, through direct reversal of the underlying
climatic
effect. In celebration, they constructed the Wandering Flame, an
artificial
sunlet that shines for one seventeenth of an orbital period over any
planet on
which any colony or clade or demopoly successfully manages an
environmental crisis.
This account has long known to be a deliberate allegory but is still
considered
by some to be a literal account, despite the fact that no record of
such a
world can be found.
The
technology of the Wandering Flame is not known, although it appears to
be based
on monopole catalysed conversion. Although the Wandering Flame often
delivers
more solar energy than the planet's original star, no measurable
climatic or
ecological side effects occur, as the Flame keeps a respectful distance
from
the planet concerned. When not fulfilling its primary function, the
Wandering
Flame can usually be found in the asteroid belt of some otherwise
uninteresting
star system, or moving at relativistic velocity towards another colony.
The most recent visit was when it appeared above Jedman II of the Sagittarius Transcultural Cooperation. It is currently residing 33 lightyears spinwards in the system YTS 5498-3498222. Information and updates about the Wandering Flame are provided by an accompanying Sophic League ai monitor craft - the Light-Bringer, which has accompanied it since the late Second Federation period.
The Augury is a spherically-shaped region of space, roughly 32 light-hours in diameter, located around 2 light-years to the galactic north of Elnath in the former Cygnus Expansion volume. It is generally believed that the Augury is a Terragen clarketech artefact of Archai origin. A fine dust of processing elements occupies the space, but whether this is the structure of the Augury itself or simply a receiving antenna is not known.
For several thousand years, pilgrims have approached this location with questions about the future and their fate. If it makes any reply at all, the Augury will answer one question for each petitioner. Unfortunately, there is no way to know in advance which question it is. Only seventeen questions have ever been answered, and four of them were asked by accident and apparently trivial, but in each case the petitioner expressed a profound sense of satisfaction and enlightenment.
The first question that was ever answered was posed by the astrogation officer of the exploration craft Mons Meg who asked ‘What the hell is this thing?’ The answer he received was a short description of the Augury’s purpose, and an assurance that the officer would benefit from his discovery. Which turned out to be an accurate prediction.
The
Circle of Time is located on Golden Mesa (YTS 2293-3800031 X) among the
extensive ruins on this airless world. From the outside, the Circle of
Time
appears as a circular path of beaten silver, eighty-three meters in
diameter.
When a visitor sets foot on the Circle at any point, the path begins to
move,
conveying the visitor around the Circle in precisely fifteen minutes
and
twenty-eight seconds. During the journey around the Circle, many
additional
copies of the visitor can be seen, each apparently displaced in time
from the
original. It is possible to converse with these alternate versions of
oneself,
although the conversations are frequently repetitive and bizarre.
Information regarding the precise nature and origin of the Circle of Time remains inconclusive. Sceptics claim that the time-shifting effect is produced by an advanced and sentient form of hyperfog, running an advanced form of TwoTee simulation, but no indication of the existence of such a material can ever be detected by modosophont visitors.
While some devotees claim this artefact is evidence of a long-lost alien supercivilisation, many artificial theologians argue that it is a didactic device left by a long-ascended AI, tentatively dated some time during the late ComEmp period. However, they are unable to conclusively show how a hyperturing could reach this far from the inhabited centre so long before even relativistic exploratory nanoprobes.
The Diamond Book has the density and appearance of purest diamond. No matter how many pages are turned, there are still as many left. Although this implies that the Book has an active shape changing mechanism within its structure, the exact mechanism and source of power has apparently never been determined, or if it has, never revealed.
No page has ever been found containing words, pictures, or other visible content, though each page sparkles beautifully and individually. Those who read the Book by gazing on several pages in succession feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. The emotion is not debilitating but cathartic, and has inspired great artistic works and a lasting end to several wars.
The design of the Book itself is understood to be a supreme example of psychoactive art, apparently made by an unknown high transapient long ago. Despite the many intrigues that have broken out in competition for possession of the sole portable Artefact of Mystery, no violent conflict has ever occurred. Its origin is unknown; the first mention was in 7302 in the inventory of Labeyrie in the Solar Dominion.
