[JIVA] Phase VI - Vivens Mortua Est

[JIVA]

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"We have finally arrived back at Corinth. Weeks of travelling through that god forsaken darkness of both the nebula and the minefield. Thankfully we have not lost any crewmember.

Karen and Richard are still suffering from the aftermath of their severe radiation burns. They are stabilized but i fear that there will be permanent damage. I will probably need to let them go; - at least until they are healthy enough again for spacetravel."

821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"Captain Hasuf and co-pilot Ramirez have left the old Askjas bridge...for good. The old Whale-class has accompanied us for a long time. Now that i had a chance to see the old gal from the observation lounge from Corinth i feel very lucky we even made it back home. The entire hull looks brittle and pockmarked by micro-meteroids and twisted by radiation.

I will probably need to declare that old ship a total loss. That won't have a good effect on any further projects. The board is always too concerned about the costs."

821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"The first week on Corinth and i was finally able to find the time to update the starcharts. I also received a message from the board of directors confirming my request to begin Phase V.

It must be my luckiest day today. After we were denied to customize a Nephilim class starship for Phase V, my connections have finally payed off. We are allowed a similar ship.
I have already send word to the team to prepare the equipment. Samples, computer equipment; - our entire lab will be transfered to the new ship. I can hardly wait to see it.

Now i have to leave though to oversee the delivery of food, water and oxygen supplies as well as fuel. Our budget is strained already and i should better not think of the mess we are in when we do not provide any success sooner than later."

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821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"Oh, my god - Words cannot describe this ship. I cannot believe the size. The old Whale is nothing compared to that. We have energy in abundance, advanced computing power and the command bridge... I cannot decide if it is really a bridge or an observation deck. Everything is so clean, so elegant.

Livadia told me that they are just running some last test and maintenance tasks. I will need to cast a few more team members to operate the ship, but there is still a month until we officially take the command. *sigh* I just hope there are not too many unqualified people trying for the job again; it is such a waste of time."

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"We have to rush our effords. Too many questions asked by people that have no authorization. I really cannot take that right now. Too much is at stake and i have to think of other, much more important things than some pompous desk jockey.

We have departed with the minimum staff. Actually less than minimum. Specimen are held in hibernation fields until we can get some marine squads aboard, too.

My team is not even half ready. I am glad that the ship is running almost on automatic. Course is set for Kappa then Delta and then uncharted space beyond Tokelau.

Memo to myself - i have to send a full report to my contacts at CRI.
Another memo to myself - check the containment field of the growth chamber!!!"

821 AS - Diary, Ásgærðr Varðrdottir

"Specimen in the growth chamber is stable. The biomass is fully contained and i have ordered a three shift rotation to observation and security.

Specimen has reached a size of 50 meters length. That is more than 10 times the size of Phase III. Reaction to lightsources are positive. Samples show an immunity to Gamma and Theta wave radiation. If we can get into that, we should be able to produce more efficient anti-radiation medicine or even allow genetic alteration to make subjects immune to radiation.

It is most probably a blessing that we have not spliced nomad brain remains into the biomass. We cannot risk the same disaster that occured at the end of Phase III.

But just to be sure we have deployed capital standard shields around the entire chamber. That ship is strong enough to contain even a singularity. So i am confident that nothing can get out.

I got a message that additional personnel will arrive within the next month. Until then we can only observe and conduct minor experiments. But it should be enough to satisfy our sponsors."

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

"Finally, we have managed to get the reactor to run at peak efficiency. I cannot deny that it is highly disconcerting to live next to an artificial black hole, but i cannot deny that this quantum singularity reactor produces a lot more energy than anything i have ever seen.

It has also a very good side effect. If we should ever run into trouble that we cannot get out of, this singularity will swallow up everything we have done, no evidence left - now isn't that a comforting thought?

Anyway, it seems we have managed to get laboratory A1 to run, A2 to run on backup level, lab B1 and B2 still need work. I will need to consult with Hazel about the schedule.

Dr Zhang has reported that he and his team have already jumped to a human test subject with serum V. I cannot really approve it at that time. The serum is not ready yet, not even for my taste. It is a waste of time because the results will not represent its potential, but other than that - it is only two test subjects, nothing lost there.

Hmm - this is his report... lets see:


"specimen 01

gender: female
Origin: hispanic
age: 23
medical history: file 8c923-738

injected serum V0.32 - human specimen, reaction study

- 1 minute: no reaction
- 2 minutes: no reaction
- 5 minutes: no reaction
- 10 minutes: subjects expresses pain
- 12 minutes: subjects expresses excessive pain, danger of loosing conscience
- 12 minutes: adrenaline injected
- 15 minutes: excessive pain and discoloured skin patches
- 20 minutes: scanners show scrambling of internal organs on a molecular level
- 22 minutes: chaotic growth of tumors on the epidermis
- 25 minutes: immediete failure of internal organs
- test subject perished. Braindeath recorded at 23:02:42 standard time
- biomass still active
- active splicing of tissue on a molecular level proceeding to another level
- 56 minutes: epidermis builds up boils and blisters
- 143 minutes: boils have burst and released clouds of molecular spores.
- 183 minutes: tissue has liquidized

We have taken samples of the spores, the liquidized tissue.

The remains were spaced and he isolation chamber was fully sterelized.

specimen 02

gender: male
Origin: hispanic
age: 27
medical history: file 8b928-738

injected serum V0.32 - human specimen, reaction study

- 1 minute: no reaction
- 2 minutes: no reaction
- 5 minutes: no reaction
- 10 minutes: subjects expresses pain
- 12 minutes: subjects expresses excessive pain, danger of loosing conscience
- 12 minutes: adrenaline injected
- 15 minutes: excessive pain and discoloured skin patches
- 22 minutes: discolouring of skin around the chest area, upper arms and upper legs
- 26 minutes: sudden death of test subject 02
- for some reason the molecular activity has ceased.
- 56 minutes: no change
- 190 minutes: no change
- 250 minutes: no change

Samples of tissue taken, of both the discoloured patches and the unchanged ones. We have also taken samples of internal organ tissue.

We have spaced test subject 02 and sterelized the isolation chamber."

Well that is not even that bad. It is worthless for the anti-radiation project, but it may have use for some of our sponsors, - especially if the spores of test subject 01 are resistant and contagous.


On a happy note - it seems we have settled an agreement with Freeport 11. Our new security and communication office should establish itself well there. One of our ships will make the deliveries which results in a very generous rental reduction.

Note to myself:

- Despite everything we need more test subjects. More various ones for sure. Maybe even some of Outcast origin due to their cardamine alteration but also other groups. 50-100 should do the job for phase V

- We have to start aquiring more alien biomass, especially sentient one. Lets see what our contacts can get here. in small quantities it should not be a problem at all. Might contact the Bounty Hunters Guild; they are easier to deal with and have first hand access.

- I have to contact my sponsors in New York to report the first test results. I have to give it to dr Zhang, it may have been overzealous, but he did provide good enough results to satisfy them for some time."

.... meanwhile test subject 02 goes on its last journey through the expanse of the tokelau nebula ....

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

"Set subjects 8-49 were processed. So much work, but at least we got some results. The new strain of DNA proofed valuable and the scientific thesis has been sent to the coreworlds.

Growth subject 04 is putting more and more strain on the dampening fields. Mr Gross has mentioned in the last meeting that we might need to produce a lot more power to keep the growth sample under control."

5 weeks later

"Ah, what a day. When he said "more energy" he meant by a factor of 10 at least. This man is crazy. No idea how that should work - there is no powercore in Sirius that can produce that much energy except planetary core reactors - and good luck installing one of those in even a Leviathan class ship."

1 week later

"My god, - it is a blessing that we chose to operate in deep space. We had to vent parts of the alien bio samples into space. The containment field just cannot hold it back anymore. Almost immedietly a strikeforce of Nomad assault ships turned up.

Their weapons managed to break the hull on deck 8, causing a violent decompression before emergency forcefields turned on. 12 scientists of my team and 2 of team beta got pulled into space along with valuable equipment. And to make things even worse; the power needed to operate the emergency forcefields weakened the containment."

3 weeks later

"Mr Gross came up with a bold plan. Aparently he and his team have studied the old alien reactor of that Leviathan ship and found a way to turn it on again - or as he so optimisticly stated "create a black hole on deck 1".

If we can turn that old reactor on, we might have sufficient power. At least our tests show that this singularity core can produce anabundance of power.
We have returned to Freeport 11 and docked above the biodome gardens to get parts and machinery on board."

5 weeks later

"The shield matrix is established and stable. It seems it requires a specific element to balance the powers of this micro singularity. I just hope it does not fail. I have to admit that i do not feel comfortable working right next to a singularity. We have yet to feed the main circuit but tests look very promising"

1 week later

"It is amazing! Not only does the containment field run at 100% with a lot of spare power, but we also have sufficient power left to finally power up all the other alien systems.

I have no idea why the old crew under Ms Tate never managed to work on the old systems, - guess they were not interested in them."

1 week later

"After what, regarding to the logfiles, over a thousand years, - we have turned the alien shield system on again and i am impressed. It works like a charm. We still have to figure out the exact effect but it is evident that the shields have strengthened by a factor of at least 4. The energy barrier is so strong that it even created a visible bubble around the ship."

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

from the datafiles terminal 01, office of the directorate.

Report Phase V, closure 1.0 mail
"All specimen have been catalogued and then discarded. We airlocked everything into a blue star and i am sure no evidence can ever be recovered."

Report Phase V, closure 1.1 reply
"[Dear Dr Hakoto, i am pleased to hear that everything went flawlessly. I am sure you double checked everything so that we can be certain no traces were left anywere, not aboard the Leviathan, nor in the office chambers of Freeport 11.

Attached you will find your transit to Manhattan on an express liner. Your work was much appreciated and your money was transferred to your account. 2,3 million SC; even considering the current inflation rate it should be more than enough to allow you a pleasent and long life on curacau - if you choose so.

sincerely Ásgærðr Varðrdottir, Director of Science]

thank you, ms Varðrdottir. It was a pleasure working with you, if you ever require my assistance in matters of xenobiological research i am sure you will contact me."


excerpt from the "Sirius News on Freeport 9"

"...in a tragic accident the shield emitter of express liner "Santo Domingo" overloaded and cause a fatal breach on three decks. +++ The catastrophic decompression killed 43 passengers; 78 were severely wounded before the backup shielding activated. Among the casualties is famous singer Amanda Radi and her partner...."

note to self:

Well, thats closure, too i guess. I am afraid to say we will most certainly not require your work anymore, doctor.

With this - i think i can close Phase V and initiate Phase VI

sent item, mail

"Dear ms Tate, i know you are officially retired, but i wanted to inform you that we have finished part 5 of the project and move on to the next stage. Phase VI will include live applications on a larger scale.

So far results have exceeded our expectations. The specimen are highly aggressive and can be programmed to attack selectively. We are able to theoretically program a half life for the virus for safety.

The board of directors has agreed to large scale experiments. We have recently finished the transfer of the old ship to the Baffin system, it really was not efficient to keep the old girl running anymore. I had to hire more techs than scientists for our actual work to keep the ship from collapsing on itself. But we salvaged the core of course.

Since you do have some connections to the TAZ from past times, i have attached a few "things" that you may be able to take care of. Appreciate your assistance.

Ásgærðr Varðrdottir"

note to self:

- the Rephaim is docked at Corfu, i ll have a few ppl make sure the shielding makes it impervious to even deep scans.

- some Bounty Hunters have been nosing around lately. No idea if they have picked up a trace or are just naturally nosy. Thankfully they think all people flying under a zoner mantle are morons so they probably have their guard down. I ll send a few pilots to make them disappear i think

- The Askja was crippled in an engagement with one of those disgusting alien lifeforms *sigh* 2 dead and 5 wounded... not to mention lost cargo and repairs for nearly 200.000 SC - i better leave that out of the reports... .

Phase VI - vivens mortua est

The new Fearless class armored transport has left livadia shipyards and moored at Corfu. It will be christened once we have closed the matter with the Persephone. Modifications will need to be done. For that i think it is best to transfer the ship to Baffin... damn, never been there, hope those religious guys don t freak me out too much.

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

"We have finally arrived at the far side of Curacau. A good shower and a bit of relaxation at last. Time to wash away the filth that is the edgeworld adventure and replace it with a bit of convenience that is civilization.

According to the report we have made contact with this zealous religious Zoner sect. Well, lets see how it goes - at least they are harmless enough from what the reports say.

Ásgærðr Varðrdottir"

"Funds for Phase VI have been approved by the board of directors. I am sure that we will exceed financial expectations again but that is just the nature of things. It is impossible to predict scientific progress and needs after all.

We have made contact with the a CRI division that is also still in contact with those eco terrorists, the Gaians. It seems that some of them are not at all as holy as they want to appear in the media.

With the entire Leeds system locked up it is hard to get things done there and we have not been able to get in contact with any reasonable person in the so called Gallic Navy; but i am sure cooperation will be possible once things settle down a bit.

Ásgærðr Varðrdottir"

"We have deployed a small amount of Phase V serum into an isolated refugee area of Leeds. Almost all the refugees suffered from radiation sickness caused by the bombardment of Gallic forces.

Results are promising. Reports show that roughly 73% of all the people affected by Phase V have shown increased resistance if not immunity to the symtoms of radiation. around 6% of the cases however have developed an aggressive cancerous growth/mutation and the rest appears to be unaffected.

I am going to pull our agents out of the area for further analysis once we manage to smuggle some key specimen out of Leeds.

Ásgærðr Varðrdottir"

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the [JIVA] group

[JIVA]

report from dr. F. Eutropio

"My department has made the final assessments about re-deploying our fleet. From what i can see with utmost certainty is that none of the Zoner ships, no matter how customized, fits our purpose. They are just not build efficiently enough. Maintenance cost skyrockets after just a short mission time, they make use of rather poor reactors, as a matter of fact, all of those ships run half on emergency energy all the time.

But i get ahead of myself, i will review the ships one by one - along with the capabilities.

the Whale

It is a copy of the GMG Kujira and it shows. Aside from having very little space for staff accomodations, it runs on what can only be described as a freighter powercore. When we made stress tests, the entire ship literally shut down trying to compensate recharging its shields. No thrusters, no lights, no life support. The blackout lasted for over 5 minutes with severe damage to the reactor.

This ship is really just good enough to haul basic cargo around.

The Corvo

This ship may have been our first choice as a research vessel, but it is neither here nor there. The laboratory pre-requisites are mediocre, navigational system is poor and maintenance is high. It does show that these ships were build to be light militia cruisers and not science ships.

The Fearless

Fearless ships have room and architecture but cannot adapt well to laboratories. their energycore is rather poor, too. They are also incapable to accomodate a larger crew comfortably.

With severe customization it might be possible to modify a Fearless to fit our needs, but it still does a job that is below average. Maintenance costs for Fearless class ships is reasonable though.

The Nephilim

Aside from the ship being too large, it is an outright nightmare in terms of maintenance. It is as bad as the Leviathan class and the monthly costs to just keep the thing safe is enough to build our own ship design.

I have sent you the detailed analysis attached to this report.

With that in mind, i suggest and already initiated plans and efforts to actually do design a ship fitting our needs. The old Democritus Yacht design fits our needs perfectly - but is too small. I have commissioned Kishiro Industries to look into our new design.
I heard that - one way or another - they already have experience with heavily modifying their solid designs which they continously upgrade. They have in the past years, downgraded their gunship design for civilian militia usage, which is now deployed by the Gaian faction under the codename "Claymore". Our new design is based on exactly such a downgrade from military grade.
Since Kishiro has vast knowledge in superstructures, especially of capital class ships - i have, under my authority - commissioned a yacht design to them that would accomodate up to 200 scientists, a small crew and marine/security team.

Cost projections are between 1-1,5 billion credits, along with at least a billion credits worth of deployment fees. While exceeding the cost of any existing ship, design and materials allow for very low maintenance while allowing high security.

Once approved by the board of directors, the agreement with Kishiro can be finalized to a beneficial end.

sincerely F. Eutropio, sd Omega Division, JIVA"

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc79/...c6e4fb.png

"I have reviewed dr. Eutropios review and agree with his assessment. After submitting his request to the board of directors, the money was approved and sent to him.

Deducting over 2 billion credits is quite a hit at that time, and it does slow down any operations. Due to that, i have sent most of my personell on vacation for a month. Except for the Askja, our ships are now drydocked."

"I have decided to visit some sweet spots on Curacau myself - there is little to do until i get message of the progress from mr Eutropio anyway."

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the [JIVA] group