In
3702 AT, a huge burst of radio waves was detected emenating from a
planet orbiting the star HD 148071. This burst lasted just over 10
hours, and then went silent. No pattern was recognizable in the burst,
but it was energetic enough, and tightly focused enough to merit
investigation. A swarm of microprobes was soon dispatched to
investigate. The probes detected a large, fast spinning, ringed, Jovian
gas giant in orbit around the star at just over 9 AU. This planet was
eventually named Rangar. This gas giant had but a single, albeit very
large moon. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, until the probes
investigated the planet's rings.
The rings of the world were odd in the fact that there were several
sharply dilineated bands of cupric-oxide, ferric-oxide, and
nickle-oxide. The entire ring system is highly electrically charged,
because the magnetic field of the rapidly spinning planet below is
nearly twice the strength of that of the planet Jupiter.
The probes concluded that the rings were held in place by a complex
utility fog network, keeping the rings seperate from each other, and
allowing the electircal charge of the rings to be put to work. This
theory was proven true when one of the probes attempted to penetrate
the ring. The probe was disassembeled, as if by virulent grey goo, and
it's component materials quickly spread throughout the ring system.
Though obviously of artificial origin, the rings of the planet remained
unresearched and unexplored until after the end of
The
Version War. The reports sent
back by the original microprobe swarm were destroyed during the Version
War, and all that remained was a known threat of grey goo.
After The Version War, Negentropists sent out another probe swarm to
follow up and recover their lost data. This time, the probes in orbit
around the planet witnessed a marvelous site. The ring system began a
rapid, partial collapse, spinning faster as it spiralled towards the
planet. That was when it emitted an identicle burst of radio energy.
The inner rings were the source of the burst, and the process appeared
to be controlled by the outter rings. This time, a pattern was detected
in the radio burst. After a few long months of decoding, a message - of
a sort - was deciphered. The radio burst contained the number Pi, to
nearly six million decimal places represented in a mathematical system
with a base equal to the square root of seven.
Over time, the Rings of Rangar returned to their "normal" shape and
orbit, evidently pulled back into place by the utility fog that
surrounds them. The microprobes that witnessed the phenomenon concluded
that the utility fog is most likely solar powered, and gathered the
energy they would use to return the rings to their "normal" state over
a period of approximately 4700 years.
The probes attempted to communicate with the nanobots that contained
the ring, and anything that might be within the gas giant's atmosphere,
but all attempts were greeted with silence. Either the megascale
engineering project is unable to receive input or is not
intelligent...Or is unable to translate the Negentropists attempt at
communication.
The nanobots that contain the ring of the gas giant apparantly do not
react destructively to nickle/iron alloy steel. Protrouding from the
utility fog that surrounds the ring structure are several large
nickle/iron steel "taps", that are electrically connected to the vast
charge of the ring system. This allows the rings to be used as if they
are a gigantic battery, with the positive pole being on the outward
edge of the rings and the negative pole on the inward edge.
Eventually, the Negentropists set up a permanent installation on the
gas giant's solitary moon, and found the moon to be dense with heavier
elements. After many years of archeological work, the moon was
converted into a mining facility, and a wormhole leading back to
Negentropy space was placed in orbit around the star. On the surface of
Rangar's solitary moon the Negentropists built a huge black construct
that served as the base of operations in the system. The moon
eventually became home to a large number of residents, all there to
study the rings, and the other xenoarcheological wonders of the Serpens
Volumn. Over time, the moon became known as Isotope, and the single
large black structure on the moon surface was known as "The Black Box".
Because Rangar is so close to the
Black
Acropolis region of space, many
conjecture that the Rings of Rangar and the Black Acropolis Dysons were
built by the same civilization - however this is unlikely, as they
share no common engineering elements.
Rangar's sole moon, Isotope, is now a huge mine, and much copper,
aluminum, iron, and other metals are taken from it each day. Dominating
the surface of Isotope is a huge black construct known as "The Black
Box". It is a rectangle centered slightly in the northern hemisphere of
Isotope. The Box is 400 meters tall, and 5000 KM on a side. Inside this
construct is the living quarters of the systems' Rl inhabitants, the
bulk of the system's computronium nodes, the ground base for Isotope's
space fountain and the infrastructure for the mine operation. The Box
has a volume of 10,000,000 cubic kilometers, and contains more than
enough area and resources to house and keep the systems inhabitants.
Isotope is in a very tilted orbit, nearly a polar orbit, around Rangar.
Because of that, it never experiences a solar eclipse from its primary.
Negentropist scientists conjecture that the moon is either not native
to the system, is artificially constructed, or is actually an
independently formed planet moved into orbit around Rangar. Isotope has
a diameter of 4211km.
The inner planet of the Etaran system, Arius, was terraformed in the
year 9000at. Its ecosystem is entirely
aritficial and was designed to be as pleasant to as many
different kinds of sophonts as possible. Arius is known as a beautiful
vacation destination. There is only one animal in the entire
biosphere
that is even remotely dangerous (a baboon-derived species), and it is
confined to a small island.
Arius is pervasively angelnetted.
The Etaran system has three wormholes, two of which are active. One
leads back to Negentropic space, and carries the product of the mine
there. Another leads deep into Black Acropolis space. The third is
currently being held in a linelayer at subatomic size, because the
other terminus is aboard a linelayer heading towards a system in the
STC.
The third wormhole is scheduled to be opened in the year 10,621 A.T.
Doc Watson, the
S:4 AI that oversees the entire
system, is a rather odd figure in local lore. Many stories say that E
was sent to Rangar to oversee a minor mining operation as punishment
for eir straying from true Negentropism. Other rumors tell
that Doc Watson is watching over Rangar and waiting to be in the area
if something shows up to answer Rangar's broadcast (this rumor is
usually accompanied by stories of dozens of Black Angels inside the
Black Box, waiting to pounce on any threatening entities that come to
answer the broadcast). The truth of these rumors is unknown, but Doc
Watson does take active interest in xenoarcheology and any new
information on either the Black Acropolis Builders, the Builders of the
Rings of Rangar, or the Dawn hunters. It is known that E has lavished
academicians with luxury
accomodations for the duration of their stay if they have information
on xenoarcheology in general, the three "local" races in particular,
and most especially if they have strange, new artifacts to show Em.
