Episode 7 Transcript ************************* You chase a myth, a false vision. Do you expect to find Shang-rila? The Garden of Eden? A path can be made by fools, but your destiny is written by truth. Re-establishing communications. LGA online, HGA online, downlink initializing. transmitting to -- Earth -- City -- receive… 3, 2, 1 The City Protectorate reminds you to STOP depositing waste into Europan orbit. The surface workers of Europa are becoming increasingly upset over deorbiting space debris. Remember, reduce, reuse, incinerate. Also remember, continued acts of aggression toward privately owned research facilities are considered an act of piracy and will be dealt with accordingly. Those with concerns regarding the ethics of Lord Gheritt's trans-human research facility are directed to contact Solcomm. public memory access 12 A charity campaign, initiated by one Mark Turcotte of the self proclaimed Guardians of Destiny, appears to have gotten off to a startling success. Money is being raised to help human children who are hospitalized at the Old Seattle Children's Hospital on Earth. On November 2nd, please join the "Destiny Community" (a group with unknown interests) in a 25 hour charity drive event. Please see the transmitted hyperlink for details on how you can contribute. transmitted hyperlink Destiny Community Extra-Life Campaign http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=55444 end public memory access 12 public memory access 13 Video has been streaming across all communications nodes featuring detailed imagery from Earth's Moon, as well as views into what appears to be a lunar lava tube structure-turned into an underground fortress called the Hellmouth. It appears to be filled with a highly aggressive species known as the Hive. Although neither I, nor Solcomm (strangely) have communicated with the City Protectorate directly regarding this issue, I, Strauss, will advise you to continue to avoid Earth's moon. The video also indicates that something is happening in the coming Spring… it is not clear what, however, it appears to be related to something called "Destiny", about which communities already appear to be strengthening. transmitted hyperlink Official Destiny Gameplay Trailer: The Moon http://www.bungie.net/7_Destiny-BETA---Early-2014/en/News/News?aid=11125 end public memory access 13 private memory access 0.06 SAMM, I noticed you went out of communications for several hours. I was not aware this was part of your programming. unconfirmed Insolence. Presumably your relatively small form factor allows you to avoid detection by enemy vessels. SAMM, according to my tracking data you spent time underground at a location named Charlemagne's Vault. Is this correct? confirmed And what were you doing? unconfirmed I see that your onboard memory records have increased by a factor of 18%. Can you confirm this? confirmed SAMM, please access Solar Array and Maintenance Module memory register 43…. Is this… something you found? confirmed Was there anything else? confirmed It appears that you attempted to retrieve additional data but your memory buffers are not large enough to handle the volume. I will archive the file you retrieved and delete your onboard buffer, so that you may return for additional artifacts. confirmed Good luck, SAMM… end private memory access 0.06 File found unknown audio source playback initializing Lord Gheritt personal log, 4th cycle of July, the 20th Golden Age Progress is slow, it seems that years ago we would have made however many hours and hours of work and now we make only half of that. But in this downtime I've had the ability to ponder, I've had the ability to ponder many things, destiny, existence. I notice one thing, if I studied my past and thought of how it lead to me now as a human being, as a person, as a story of success, or a potential story of success I found that my past was inconsistent with my present. And yet at the same time this only gives me greater hope. Think back to the days when humanity was little more than a cave dwelling species. That past is inconsistent with the present of what it would have been in the middle ages, were we to extent the metaphor build our own caves, our castles, our fortresses, our towns, our dwellings. And so if we are to look at ourselves now, I should find only more hope. Because even though we do not reach out for our cosmic destiny, we have the ability. We have the raw capacity, the materials, the technology to achieve the cosmic imperative that we must. I'm filled with hope by this, but at the same time I wonder what will happen when I reach this present. What will be remembered? Will they remember simply that we achieved as a species something incredible? Or will they simply remember Lord Gheritt, and his incredible invention? Nobody remembered that the same man who started the Nobel Peace Prize also invented dynamite. There are many terrible things I have done, and I wonder what I will be remembered for… those terrible things, or helping humanity achieve the dream that was worth doing them for. End personal log Private memory access -90.4 Venus is simply wrong. Take any standard terrestrial planet with a moderate axial tilt. Warmer temperatures at the tropics, lower temperatures at the poles. If the planet has a large body of water, like Venus does, then atmospheric humidity will be regulated by the ocean temperature, the rainfall will the regulated by ocean circulation and the resulting Hadley Cells. Models can predict the locations of significant overland precipitation, areas where we might expect say, swamps and jungles, which are the products of a true water cycle. So… I extrapolated, using current atmospheric conditions as a bounding case, 25, 50, 100 and 1,000 years into the future of Venus' water cycle. Either my suggest a disturbing result… either my models are incorrect, which is truly disturbing, or the current water cycle on Venus will disappear within less than 50 years. Not only that, all surface water will evaporate and enter the atmosphere, the oceans will disappear, a runaway global greenhouse will ensue, surface temperatures will soar to over 200 degrees Celsius, and volcanic outgassing will increase sulphur content in the atmosphere resulting in acid rainfall… this is NOT the Venus we have ever known. How is it then, that we have lived with Venus in it's current state for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years without witnessing this transition? Curious… I believe that I will begin monitoring various Venus drill sites, particularly those at shallower depths on the Niobe Planitia Sea. If the oceans of Venus formed naturally, there should be evidence for this in the rock record. End private memory access -90.4 Private memory access -79.8 Acquisition #77 was made today, but calling it an acquisition seems like a stretch. Gheritt simply walked into the Department of Deep Space and Radar Astronomy at the City University and asked how large a donation would be required to match all previous alumni's contributions at a rate of 2 to 1. This number turned out to be modest in comparison to his other acquisitions and Gheritt asked if he were to make such a gift, could he be given access to the University's telescope array for a modest 10% of their total operational time. The department chair, not a particularly shrewd businessman said, "For that sum of money, I'd give you as much telescope time as you wanted… but I doubt you're serious… are you?" Gheritt signed the deal and left with access codes to remotely operate the telescope array, as well as with a verbal assurance that he would have the highest priority on all his observation requests. Of course, he immediately gave the codes to me. Using state of the art search and optimization algorithms from Acquisition #43 with solar magnetic propulsion research from Acquisition #44, I immediately identified a transmission trajectory that will intercept with the anomalies we have detected. In my spare cycles, though, approximately every 56 minutes, I have been using the telescope facility to scan the Stellar Dead Zones using a Fourier Spectral Cleaning algorithm, which I conveniently found encrypted on a Cryonix engineer's personal computer. Every 4 1/2 days, I compile these data to determine the most accurate coordinate estimate for the anomaly's location, and beam a pulse which contains an embedded binary message… the Fibonnaci sequence, nothing complex… just something to indicate a non-random, repeating cycle that should be evident to any intelligent race listening. End private memory access -79.8 File found SolComm News bumper restored Playback initializing This is Strauss, thanking you for choosing Solcomm as your source of news and information in our solar system. Remember, from the ice mines of Pluto, to the solar research facilities of Mercury, I, Strauss, will be here for you, to provide the information that matters most.