Project Skyhook

[Foxglove]

Cauldron
Project File: Skyhook

Clearance:
Violet
Red
Green◄
Public

Importance:
High
Medium
Low◄

Project Lead: Prof. Dr. med. Teresa Martinez LL.M.
Dr. Adrian Wight

Complimentary: Dr. Howard C. Brown
Edward Vynn
Mishra Dunn and colleagues

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Premise:

Since the first development of hyperspace technology, the scientific community has been searching for ways to employ it for personnel travel. Largely believed impossible due to the impreciseness of hyperspace coordinates, which range from 25 up to several hundred clicks from the originally surveyed location, a particular group known as the Cult of Technology, hereafter referred to as the Cult, repeatedly demonstrated this assumtion to be false. Employing technologies yet unknown to man, the Cult possesses superior weaponry, engine, cloak and hyperspace technology. The Cult has repeatedly been engaged in hostile encounters with house militaries and inter-house agents. One such agent is known as Auxesia, who upon inquiry were willing to impart infomation they had gathered to Professor Martinez. A copy of the exchange will be attached to the premise.

While there is certainly a lot to be learned about the Cult's motivations and modus operandi, these questions will not be treated here. Instead, the focus will be resting solely on the Cult's application of advanced hyperspace technology, which we believe is able to be employed within a moment's notice and with pinpoint accuracy. If we are able to replicate this within common hyperspace technology available today, not only would their versatility be greatly increased, but it might also be the start of an era where jump gates and trade lanes become superfluous, as distances can be crossed using hyperspace technology within mere seconds.

The key to this, we believe, is a substance called Narcahtite, a crystalline, brittle material that seems to be playing a huge part in the Cult's materiel, though not in its raw, but rather a refined form. To achieve a better understanding of the Cult, it is necessary to devise a way to refine this material. However, due to the difficulty in obtaining Narcahtite, as it only appears to be commonly found in sporadically appearing, uncharted systems, the Project will need to be conservative with the usage of its available stock.

Currently, a total of 56.1 grams of Narcahtite is in the Project's possession, with 114.3 kilograms of drone remains, which appear to be made of common materials, though we hope to find trace amounts of the refined form of Narcahtite within them. We either devise a way from the ground up to refine it, or we might be able to reverse engineer the way the Cult did so if we successfully find trace amounts of the refined material.

Relevant References:

Case File #139 - 'The Cult'

The following references require RED clearance to be viewed:

To: Auxesia | From: T. Martinez
Affiliate: Martinez, Teresa

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[Foxglove]

Narcahtite

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Originally believed to be found naturally in certain uncharted systems, analyses of the substance have, at first, raised questions about whether or not it might not have been artificially created. Two major observations have led to this hypothesis:

• The substance has exclusively been found in the midst of dense asteroid fields. If a substance as brittle as Narcahtite were to develop naturally, the environment would not have supported its growth in larger crystalline formations, as collisions of asteroids and the freed kinetic energy would shatter them, thus creating a Narcahtite dust cloud surrounding its natural occurrence. This, however, was not the case.
  
• The substance grows in largely symmetrical patterns around singular asteroids. If Narcahtite were to act like any other mineral that assumes crystalline appearances, its growth would be sporadic and not symmetrical.
  

From these observations, the team has largely come to the conclusion that Narcahtite is, in fact, not native to the uncharted systems it has been found in, but rather has been 'planted' there, maybe by the Cult, maybe by someone else, with the intent of growing the substance far from prying eyes (more on the growth process later). Another possibility is, of course, that Narcahtite is in fact native to the uncharted systems it has been found in and that there is a certain factor in these systems that allows the substance to thrive. However, since access to these systems is limited at best, there is currently no way to further investigate this possibility. Suffice it to say that the origins of the substance are, as of yet, unknown to us.

Properties:

Narcahtite, if exposed to other elements, is an extremely parasitic substance. Due to the atomic core of Narcahtite having three protons more than it has neutrons, it is able to exert a massive pull towards any element that has any unbound electrons in orbit. Exposure to these will eventually lead to the lighter elements breaking apart, and Narcahtite assimilating the remains, except the electrons, thus creating energy in the form of heat, or static, depending on the environment. The image to the left is a visualisation of the process, with Narcahtite reacting with helium. The dots represent the freed heat.

The newly harvested molecular material arranges itself on the outside of the nearest Narcahtite ions and eventually assemble new Narcahtite atoms. The process has been documented as remarkable because the immense negative charge of the Narcahtite should eventually lead to it breaking apart itself. We suspect its density to be the reason why it does not.

Refinement:

While it took several months to establish the above, the path ahead was relatively clear. The reason why the Narcahtite that was found in its raw form was so brittle lies in its charge. Being tripply charged negatively, the substance was bound to be strained a lot if exposed to anything that carries a high energy yield, like mining lasers, which operate on a heat basis. The first attempt at refining Narcahtite into a more durable material was undertaken by exposing it to an environment in which it would be forced to shed some of its protons. After countless failures, the process was repeated in a zero-gravitation container filled with energized Azurite gas in the hopes that the satiated Azurite would not assimilate the further energy released by the Narcahtite and it did not, as we had hoped. The Narcahtite remained stable for as long as it was suspended within the Azurite, but afterwards, it broke down again.

We proceeded to repeat the process, though this time removing two protons. Upon removing, the substance remained stable and did not decay. To our surprise, it showed a remarkable ability to conduct energy while remaining rigid. Further testing the properties of the substance, we found that it was still retaining some of its parasitic properties from before, though not to the extreme it had displayed before. It is our belief that the material would work well if used for hull plating, since its conductiveness would spread the payload of most energy-based weapons evenly around the ship, thus lessening the impact dramagically. However, the project lacks the quantities of Narcahtite necessary to create such a hull plating. Although it is technically possible to grow the current Narcahtite reserves as outlined above, the process would take months.

Comparisons to salvaged Cult technology, however, would suggest that the conductability would play a major part in operating the Cult's impressive Manticore Beam weapons as well. The Project currently has two snubcraft versions of these in its possession and will cross reference in the future.

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