Following my recent communique with "Civil Servant", we arranged to meet near Freeport Eight in Sigma 15. The clandestine tone of our meeting was set swiftly. A hail from a cloaked vessel. A request to travel "along the shattered path" to the debris field collecting around a collapsed jump hole. Such precautions are entirely understandable, especially know I have come to learn what they study. What they guard is... phenomenal.
We were shortly joined by the "Falkenhorst", a Hel cruiser whose crew and captain are also members of The Platform. The two conducted an interview, well frankly an interrogation, before requesting I land the Solace within the Falkenhorst's docking bay. From the communications chatter during the subsequent journey, a lot of care was taken to arrive at our destination undetected. We were joined en-route by the 'Battleship Khonsu'. At first I admit, the sight of an Order battleship out the viewing port concerned me. What checks may they carry out in the name of digilence? Would they require yet another interrogation? I needn't be concerned. Falke reassured me I was under the Platform's protection for the journey. Captain Ross and Dr.Blackwood both seemed level-headed and capable. Little to be concerned for, but I shall need to be cautious lest they decide to take issue with my research.
On arrival at our destination, I unberthed the Solace MK3 and found that we had arrived at a jump hole within the Dresden system. A jump hole that led to this ominous Thuringia. I was keen to set off through the jump and gaze on what lay beyond, but our party found ourselves delayed by the arrival of a number of vessels. Emilia Hoffman, a member of the Bundschuh if not the Platform, and a mysterious individual by the name of Cipriano Adimari. Conversations between Adimari and Civil Servant highlight an uneasy tension between those in the system. Apparently, Adimari was 'absorbed' by the Suhl? Acting on behalf of a 'Viper' or 'Serpent'. A balancing of scales, the two of them spoke to. I've yet to come to understand this symbolic terminology... perhaps I shall come to in time.
Despite how travelled one can feel sometimes, Sirius always has some ace up it's sleeve to astound and amaze. What waited for me on the other side of traversing the jump was one such wonder. Fiery whips of orange and red that I later came to learn was the dust and fragments of cast into the void by Gotha's detonation. The white giant sat within the debris cast in radioactive rouge.
Likewise, it never ceases to amaze me the conditions Humanity will tolerate when there is a cause. The Platform have established a station within the fragment cloud of Gotha of all places. The levels of radiation in the area were intense, and it does leave me to wonder what surviving in the active, smoldering ash of a planet does to ones body. To one's mind. Perhaps these trials are what brings such stoic countenance and demeanour from the Bundschuh I've met thus far.
With much of the party departing to restock, refuel, and commit to some R&R, Civil Servant and I were left to our lonesome with Cipriano. Another exchange of symbolic metaphor and... hmm... what struck me was the manner in which this Adimari spoke with us. Clearly, they were seeking to tempt me out of the security of Tennstadt and my guide's care, and made their associations with this 'Suhl' transparent. Some sort of trick? Why would the influence of this 'Suhl' anomaly matter? Why speak of this spatial phenomenon as if it were... alive. I'm keen to discover more, for I clearly do not grasp their meaning.
We come to the reason d'etre for this excursion, and what a sight to behold. Nestled in the clutches of the molten, decaying Gotha say a spatial anomaly unlike any I've witnessed. In close proxmity, the dust closes in in such a way to suggest reality warps around it. The radiation is more than intense, eating through the Solace's hull rapidly. The sight of it though... like an eye peering through the cracks of reality to gaze into one's very soul. If it were not for the disintegrating hull around me, I could have gazed into that for hours.
Discussing the origins of this dimensional rift brought both revelation and concern in equal measure. According to Civil Servant, Gotha experienced not one but two separate explosions. The first casting enough of the planet voidward to reveal an element of it's plantary core. Another that culminated in this cataclysmic detonation, the results borne in the cloud around us. What was startled to learn was that this explosion is reported to have taken place at a similar, if not the same, time as the pulse in Ontario. Being on Heisenberg at the time, it is hard to forget the buzz of inquiry of those aboard.
It is difficult not to entertain conjecture. If this pulse is somehow related to the emergence of this Gothan Rift, and if the OM-2A gate's destruction is linked to this same pulse... what implications does that have for the site at ONT-1? A similar pulse was observed as that intense energetic field began to form. Perhaps they are subtley different in nature... but an emergent hypothetical would be that a similar rift could be forming or formed at that locale. Or... perhaps some kind of antithesis. A reactionary response to this rent in physical reality?
Civil Servant also shared observations with regards to the collapsed jump holes being found more regularly across Sirius. He states that they've found those collapsing jump holes are no longer fading over time. Instead, they are remaining persistant and that this began post the Gothan Rift forming.
There is much to contemplate, and many more revelations to discover I am sure. For now, I shall focus on the primary action points of this project.
TH-G1 & 'Earhart' Survey Parameters
Study the remnants of Planet Gotha and the rift held within.
Survey, sample, and study the materials of the planetary fragment cloud
Discover more about the 'Suhl' anomaly, and commit to its... cautious study.
Access Earhart via the Gothan Rift
Begin to survey Earhart and the realms beyond.
Bring samples to Heisenberg Laboratory 13 for further analysis.