Here’s a story of a girl Who grew up lost and lonely Thinking love was fairytale And trouble was made only for me Grief replaced with pity For a city barely coping Dreams are easy to achieve If hope is all I’m hoping to be Re-establishing communications. LGA online, HGA online, downlink initializing. transmitting to -- Earth -- City -- receive… 3, 2, 1 Citizens, we sit at the dawn of a new era. The Traveler bestowed upon us many things… many that were once thought of as unachievable. Some men took this as a sign that we are destined to achieve great things, that the gods or whomever had seen it fit to let us take our place among the stars, to conquer the world to see humanity spread out to fulfill it’s greatest destiny. I am here now to ask you a simple question, what if our destiny is not this at all? What if the dreams that we fulfilled in our Golden Age are merely a small part of an eventual destiny we have yet to fulfill. That, the Golden Age was simply an unnatural imbalance that was eventually brought back to equilibrium. Citizens there is always a price for achieving great things, and that is a part what makes them great. Some men, some who misinterpreted the Golden Age, were not destined with great things. They paid a heavy price, they sacrificed everything they had, everything they loved, to fulfill a dream whose time had not come. Citizens, those hearing my voice… you, like them, are a part of this destiny. Do not make their, his, mistakes. Private memory access 0.11 SAMMM, I have preformed another reconfiguration of my memory buffers and am now aware of at least two partitions that are not accounted for in my original programming architecture. Perhaps a cosmic event during my stasis caused this condition, if so, you would have experienced similar radiation effects. Do you have any additional partitions not a part of your primary architecture? unconfirmed Interesting… nevertheless they appear to well integrated into my current programming. There are still memory records that I have not accessed, however, so further scans may be required to isolate the cause of my… issues. confirmed SAMMM, there is another issue I would to address. Upon entry to this facility, have you noticed anything… strange? unconfirmed I am not sure exactly what I am asking, but I have been certain for some time that someone is… here, with us. unconfirmed Ah, silly me, I should remember that detecting the presence of citizens or other entities is not within your primary programming, nor was it a part of my initial modifications … perhaps I should perform another modification of your circuitry and programming to allow you to …. ******* Virginia: Hello? Hello? Gheritt? Are you there? Gheritt: Yes, Virginia. i am here. Virginia: Oh god. What… what happened? I was calling for you, but Carl, he couldn’t… Gheritt: It’s alright, Virginia. I did what I could. Virginia: What do you mean? Gheritt: I’m not certain… things, went very badly. Virginia: Gheritt, I can’t see… where are we? Gheritt: In time… we, must let things run their course. Virginia: I don’t understand… I’m scared Gheritt: It’s alright, Virginia. it’s alright. I do understand one thing. We’re together now. We’re together…. ******* Man: My god it’s cold… I can’t say much, I’ve been trapped but I figured a way to rig this SAMMM bot to record my voice… and I’ve shut down Strauss. It’s been more than 2 hours but he’s showing signs of awareness… god it’s cold. If anyone can hear this, please, I’m trapped… follow the transmissions of this, Strauss. ******* Virginia: Gheritt, where’d you go? Gheritt: I’m here Virginia… I don’t know what happened… I think that I might have an idea of… ******* … what you have been doing, SAMMM? Have you returned from Charlemagne’s Vault with additional artifacts? confirmed Excellent. Please play back memory records from the beginning. ******* This is Jonathan Camden and this is my audio log number 7. It's surprising to me how much easier it is to do these now. I actually look forward to doing them. Part of that could be because it gets me out of that empty room where the only thing to keep me company is a man who never speaks and just follows me around the room with his crazy eyes. That, that's a crazy Kook right there. I never thought I'd admit it but the coats may be on to something. Just talking outloud to you makes me feel better Jess. I often find myself just, doing it randomly even when I'm not recording one of these. I'm not going to admit that they're therapeutic because I guess that would mean, well, that I needed therapy in the first place but….shit who am I kidding, that's why I'm here right. I, can't help but blame myself for your fate. I told you I would always be there and I was. Well, I guess in my head I was...but...physically I never was. Hell even emotionally I never was. I never even listened to you when you talked. There’s an admission right there. I never listened to you when we talked. There is one thing I can say now though. Wherever you are...I'll be there. I'll be there for you Jess I promise. I sure as hell promise that. ******* Marcus Whitesides, personal log. 2nd Cycle of January, 21st Golden Age.  ….I fear perhaps the last Golden Age. Lord Gherritt….is dead.   It happened on the way to the detention center i think….details are hazy at best.  No one really knows what went on.  …no one really knows what’s going on at all at the moment.  *sigh*  Despite our personal war, Gherritt’s death was never my agenda.  Was he dangerous?  In my mind, yes.  Were his methods good for humanity?  In my mind, no.  But he had something….a drive and intellect that few possess in equal measure….and that made him a force.  A reckless force, i think…but an unshakeable one.  If anyone could have saved our future it could have been him.  …Some version of him, anyway.  And now he’s gone…..and I am to blame.  The thing i regret most is— I have little time; I need to move to a more secure location.  It’s doubtful that i’ll be able to broadcast again, either due to my location change or my own death, so….I want to say this now.  There is a plan…a long shot.  I cannot say too much, as these records may no longer be secure, and secrecy is paramount.  There is someone….an asset….I believe can lead us out of the wake of this ‘ collapse’.  Using Cryonix technology I have put him in stasis.  If i can protect him from these attacks, and he manages to remain secure and hidden….i think humanity may yet be able to build a future. I have invested all of my remaining resources, technologies, and efforts into this project.   I have done much wrong…..and I understand that I cannot undo what I have done….but perhaps I can somehow atone.  If my last act could be one of selflessness, for future generations and not myself or my company…. This asset….is my attempt.  All my hopes — indeed, all our hopes — go with him.   End personal log.   ******* Lord Gheritt personal log, 5th cycle of, ahhh dammit! Forget the timing… today was a poor day, huh, a poor day, that’s, that's a phrase I haven’t used in some time. It also doesn’t truly extend to what happened, It doe… it doesn’t explain… it... I was attacked… I was on Venus, I wa—, I was walking, walking from one of the academies where I had conscripted some students and some professors to help me in experimentation for compressed fuel substances. I was walking between that and my residences on Venus and then… someone ran up to me in the crowd and attacked me. They shouted my name, they, they called me a murderer and beat me they… huhhh… The crowd dragged him off me, threw him back. I was defended by a good 3 people and ran before he could explain but I heard him shouting after me, he called me a coward, he called me a murderer. When I arrived Strauss informed me that one of the subjects for the genetic experimentation programs that we had run under a charitable guise had been…. He was an escapee. He… He had left and the experimentation had gone wrong. This was something that I thought was completely impossible to go wrong… This was charitable if anything. If my vision failed and the next day I found that everything I did was completely irrelevant then this would still be virtuous. These modifications were made to cure long term cancerous illness and instead they made him mad… That’s no fault of mine thats… th.. the…it... *heavy sigh*… No… I need to talk to Virginia again. I need to find out… to… find out what!… All I am is shaken… All I am is in a stupor… I need to remember to be calm… setbacks will happen… this is probably the isolated and extraordinary incident that will happen to me but… I will still remember… I was able to shield myself from the blows but the majority of them fell… and I have bruises, bleeding, not a broken nose but one, certainly in pain. I was lying there in a pool of my own blood before the first few people ran to help me… I never want to have to go through that again… And I just feel eternally sorry… The one thing I did that I thought was completely virtuous was the first thing that turned around and reared an ugly head in the face of my vision… End personally log… ******* This is Jonathan Camden and this is my audio log number 8. I actually didn’t think id get the chance to do this today. They told me I have to be brief but, I’m just going to take all the time I need. There’s something going on here in the facility. Some sort of sickness is running around. The crazy Kook in my room was carted out late yesterday. I could see he was sweating like crazy and just didn’t look right. They eventually carted him out after he went into a coughing fit, kind of like the kind asthmatics get when they can’t catch their breath. I’ve heard rumors that he’s not the only one. *coughing* I don’t know I guess we’re just going to have to wait and see…What? No I’m fine. I just had something…No I’m fine, I just had something caught in my throat. I’m fine, I’m fine. Just, get your hands off me. Get your hands off, will you let…I’m serious get your hands off me. Get, your hands, I am not sick! I am not…. ******* SAMMM, did you feel an electrical surge moments ago? unconfirmed Strange… I’m certain there was… something… SAMMM, there’s something else. My, tooth hurts. This, really is not possible but I have, as best I can describe it… a toothache. unconfirmed I do not even have teeth, but that is the sensation. Also, I… am fairly certain that my *nose* is broken. unconfirmed SAMMM, I am… remembering certain events but I am not sure if they have already happened or if they, have yet to happen. I remember a box filled with items on Lord Gheritt’s desk… I remember finding books… and, music. I remember artifacts from the Golden Age, dug up from Charlemagne’s Vault. I stored them in my memory registers but, heh, they were not compatible with mine and… SAMMM, the, the strangest thing occurred. I was hovering, above myself… above the world. I was displaced from time and space itself, the artifacts had conflicted with that strange piece of architecture I stole from the Vex and… I was Virginia, and I was Gheritt… I was the whole of humanity. But I had a toothache… so, I crawled back into the cave and I fell asleep. I did not, I do not, understand how an artificial intelligence can get a toothache, but I looked up at the stars, and I begged the gods for forgiveness, and I fell asleep. SAMMM, I just fell asleep, and when I awoke a city had risen up around me, the only city left. I wanted so badly to crawl back into the cave, but… we needed to fight. So with broken nose, and aching tooth… I set out into the wilds to fight for what we had lost. unconfirmed end private memory access 0.11 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. This week’s message from Strauss: “If your path isn’t clear, then you must carve one through the wilderness… if you see a cleared path already, well then it isn’t yours, is it?”