The Northwest Passage

[The Syndicate Leagues]

Location: Laptev System. Galileo Jump.

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Astrocartographer's Logs, UN|Tekta.Unskyld;

Kalli Seydel - The logs from the first trans-Beringian astrogation arrest the attention of anyone who takes more than a second to glance at the datasets. The mathematical recursions of long-distance phase alignments - moved from a smuggler's bar story to probably the most well-funded pathfinding activity taken by the Unioners today - is certainly worth the investment. Linking together distant, disparate stars that exist under the penumbra of the transit map - beyond the shallow connections of random natural jump-holes and early superluminal trackways from the dawn of Sirian extrasolar exploration. Our answers to the great question - jump hole generators, superluminal drives - lack the mathetmatical satisfaction of true omnipresence. For now - for a time - the sublight spacecraft will rain supreme, and our voyages into the dark will remain mortal. Our people, and our craft, remain useful. This is more than the average Unioner cares to think about, of course.

The Unioners who accompanied BrisCon's survey of the Laptev tunnel did more than their share of filling in the blank holes. Laptev, north of the nightveil of charged particles - the thunderhead of the solar wind that sweeps interstellar space as far 'south' from the Orion Arm's galactic plate as Zurich, and as far 'north' as Texas, Kansas, and Laptev, bifurcates the known space of Sirian civilisation. Gallia knows nothing of such coiling expanses that have wrapped the heartland of the sector in its grasp, of course. In their innocence, they developed antihydrogen weapons to conquer us, unaware that Sirius was already wrapped with particles of desolation - to a remarkable saturation. We are, after all, simply a reflection of space - and how we use its natural resources. How its natural perils imperil us.

The maximum mass numbers for the Laptev connection were surprising. A fully loaded freighter can make the jump without disrupting the wormhole aperture. Like athletes, to reach superluminal transit - we are limited by our mass. Without the anchor of a consistent planetary orbit, it could be thousands of years before a stable phase alignment to Laptev emergently occurs. The system remains a territorial blank - close to the heart, yet free of antibodies, infections - any mar or counterbalance whatsoever.

Factor the operations logs from the most recent New York triangulation.

Remarkable. The inner system cupped within a pixel. At extreme ranges, similar stabilisation potentials emerge as present within the 'ambient' alignment of Laptev. New York itself is not free of dark matter inference. The badlands contains high levels of electromagnetic flux comparable to Laptev's ambient system. When working at such enormous scales, true measuring devices are relegated to best guess - if only humanity had pioneered the dyson sphere. One can dream.

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"Though the past is scarred and the future untold"
" Be the boot heavy, the vacuum cold."
"I of the Liga,  do not fold"
"For suits or saints or beggar's gold.
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