Credits to:
Krusa Corraine
A. Gaunt
Elicia Gridley
Leonard Davinge
Planet Nauru, and her Inhabitants
On the very edges of colonized space, far beyond the territories of Liberty, Rheinland, Kusari, or Bretonia, lie a distant star system that has been a hotspot of conflict for decades: Omicron Delta. This system, a crossroads between the Omicron, Sigma, and Omega territories, is vied over for its material riches, strategic importance, and most of all: alien value. Here, the hostile spacefaring organisms known colloquially as "The Nomads" freely roam, patrolling the borders of their greater territories and maintaining the status of this place as a deadly frontier, fit only for those brave and well enough equipped to journey onward.
It is this system, Omicron Delta, where a historically priceless world orbits distantly around a violet gas giant, its past a mystery to us all; but no longer. I, Dr. Eva Strauss, have spent these past weeks working with archaeological teams on an expedition through the alien ruins of Planet Nauru. Ruins on this world have been excavated in the past, and it was here in 815 A.S. that famed Xenoarchaeologist, Kendra Sinclair, decisively proved that the aliens who once existed on Nauru, and all of the architecture and artifacts therein, were not of Nomad - or Daam K'vosh - origin, but rather another species entirely.
It was not until recently that a new cache of information, along with active computer databases, was found lurking under the sandy surface of Nauru; and this cache would make everything about the planet, its people, and its past more clear. During my expedition to the ruin site, the largest yet found on Nauru, a number of data files and information repositories were uncovered, decrypted, and translated by myself, my team, and a number of volunteers throughout Sirius, including those credited above. These ten translations form the basis upon which we assembled the rest of the puzzle.
"For the first time in the history of our species, we have reason to look up, to the skies. Today, visitors from outer space came to us, they descended upon our homes in mighty ships. We could not understand them, and they appear intimidating, and far more advanced." Cr: Eva Strauss
"Is it folly? Folly that we, as a people, chose to never look up? Our focus has always been to our feet, to the vast riches below us, to the planet that supports our lives and our families. Maybe, just maybe, if we had looked up to the stars, we would have been better prepared for this inevitable situation." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"The aliens that have come to our world have alarmed our government. They say these creatures intend to attack us, or to take our resources, and so our factories have begun developing a great weapon to defend us against ships from the skies. It shall be ready soon, they will test the weapon tomorrow." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"The weapon advances well. The antimatter blast it creates should be strong enough to destroy any vessel in orbit of our world, even those more advanced. It is fitting that these creatures who came to take our resources, our precious metals, should meet their end to the very same technology they so desire." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"We are a unified people. We do not fight, we do not want for more than we have. We could not understand the motives of the visitors, not at first. Now we know, now greed and envy have begun to infect our society. Our leaders build the weapon to selfishly keep what the aliens want to take from us. We should have just given it." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"The weapon test was a mistake. The antimatter blast hit Aela, our sister in the sky, and itw as thrown away from us in pieces. Already, we feel the effects of losing Aela, as we watch the debris from her spread across the skies and disappear into the void." Cr: Leonard Davinge
"The aliens must deem us a threat to ourselves and them. They have sent large, round machines into our skies. The machines gather storms, larger than any city, and spread poison across our world. It becomes harder to breathe." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"Herein lies the account of our last days. As I make this recording, the aliens are in our skies, their great machines distorting our air, it becomes harder to breathe and our lungs burn. Those on the surface melt, corrode, fade away. We have no defense, we will be dead soon. I await my time, to rejoin my family, my daughters, my wife." Cr: Krusa Corraine
"The great creatures of the deep lakes cry out. They can feel the tension of our planet as Aela slips away, they mourn for it as if for a lost sibling. They despair, as we despair in our final hours. They will survive this, protected by the waters of our world. We will not." Cr: Elicia Gridley
"We die.
There is nothing to do, but die.
Our legacy, our people, will be gone within the month.
What have we done? How has our civilization come to this bitter end?
Everything has been for naught.
We die." Cr: A. Gaunt
Throughout this documentation, I will be compiling everything we've learned about Nauru and its people into an easier-to-read format.
From what we have gathered during these and past expeditions, the Naurians - for lack of a better term - were an isolated species that evolved naturally on Planet Nauru. Presumably due to the great amount of resource wealth present within the planet, Naurian culture evolved such that the species was always inclined to "look down". Humanity, in contrast, has always looked to the skies and seen our future among the stars. The Naurians, in both their primitive stages and as an advanced society, chose to ignore the skies, the stars, and everything above in favor of focusing on what was beneath them.
They built downward, burrowing into the planet and mastering subterranean construction and architecture from a very early point in their cultural evolution. Most of Nauru's water lies in vast underground reservoirs and cave systems, which would have been imperative to the survival of the species. We do know, now, that the surface of Nauru was not always as barren as it is today, however; it was once covered in rolling grasslands, and a vast abundance of wildlife, only a fraction of which remains to this day.
Excavating deep into their world, the Naurians undoubtedly encountered and began working Iridium early in their history, likely around the same time that humanity was doing the same with iron. Iridium can be found in nearly every structure, artifact, and device on the planet, and the Naurians were master craftsmen when it came to manipulating this brittle, fickle metal. It is likely that this heavy use of Iridium, which is extremely durable and corrosion resistant, is the reason that so many relics and ruins remain intact to this day, perhaps millenia after the downfall of the Naurian race.
Unfortunately, no intact Naurian remains have ever been found, nor are they likely to be, given what we now know about the extinction event that eliminated the species. We may never know what the Naurians looked like, though we can assume from their architecture and technological devices that they were bipedal much like ourselves. It is presumed, however, that they were more stout and shorter of stature; xenobiologists brought into the expedition speculate that the average Naurian would likely have stood only just over one meter in height, with a weight of between one and two hundred kilograms; heavier than a human, but shorter. This is based largely on other lifeforms we have seen on the planet, as well as speculative evolution for a species living on a dense world in orbit of a gas giant.
Information uncovered from the expedition, as well as from stellar cartography surveys and research into local alien structures, suggests that ancient Omicron Delta would have been a hot spot for any number of space-faring empires. In this case, we believe the most likely involved were the Daam K'vosh, and their Nomad creations.
At some point late in the advancement of Naurian civilization, the Daam K'vosh began developing assets in the Omicron Delta system, utilizing the unique resources within the Palau Ice Cloud to construct a massive reactor at the outer edge of the system in order to harvest an anomalous resource we now call "Azurite". The construction of this reactor would have been a massive undertaking, even for a significantly advanced species such as the K'vosh, and would have required large amounts of materials harvested from nearby locations.
It is believed that, due to the high concentrations of Iridium on Nauru, that the Daam K'vosh would have approached the planet as a local source of construction resources. Iridium is found in large amounts laced throughout the Azurite Reactor, and given that it is an extremely rare material in all other known areas of Sirius, the logical assumption is that the Iridium used in the reactor was harvested here, on Nauru.
Approaching the planet for surveys, the K'vosh would undoubtedly have detected the presence of a moderately-advanced society. Now, we know precious little of the K'vosh empire and how they may have reacted to a lesser civilization, but we can derive from the database excerpts that they attempted to make contact, possibly in an aggressive manner, and an incident occurred that led to conflict between the K'vosh and the Naurian locals. Obviously, given their inferior civilization, the Naurians did not stand a chance at winning such a conflict.
The initial first contact with the Daam K'vosh was a point of confusion and chaos for the Naurians. Given that they, as a species, never 'looked up', they likely had never even considered the possibility of other sentient species existing elsewhere in the galaxy. It would have been a moment of severe panic for most members of the society, and it would seem that the Naurian governing body reacted no differently.
We know that communication was unsuccessful between the two species, and that the Naurians took this as an act of aggression. Whether the Daam K'vosh initially intended to meet the Naurians with hostility we may never know; but what we do know is what happened afterwards. Following a failed first contact, and subsequent evacuation of the area by Daam K'vosh representatives, the Naurian government began building a massive, antimatter-based weapon designed to attack anything in orbit of Nauru. The Naurians were exceptionally advanced when it came to antimatter creation and manipulation, and traces of this can be found in every facet of their technology, but it was clear from translations that they had never attempted to build a weapon utilizing antimatter before. Prior to the K'vosh encounter, Naurian records state that they never experienced war, strife, or conflict among or between their own people, so weaponry was never on the table for them.
The anti-orbital weapon constructed by the Naurian leadership was new territory for their engineers and scientists, and thus the prototype itself was unstable and uncontrollable. At some point during the initial tests of the weapon, it malfunctioned, destroying "Aela" - a sister moon also orbiting Tuvalu - and causing catastrophic environmental changes to Nauru itself.
Following this disaster, the Daam K'vosh positioned large, cylindrical vessels in low orbit around the planet which began to further effect the atmosphere and weather. These K'vosh machines, according to record, created massive storms on the surface, and turned the air itself into corrosive poison. It is not known whether this was an intentional attack by the K'vosh, or a failed means by which to correct the Naurian's mistake, but we know now that these machines are what led to the extinction of the Naurian species, among many other native flora and fauna on the planet.
The K'vosh disks converted the atmospheric composition of the planet to a form of concentrated Hydrogen Sulfide; which according to records was toxic and imminently lethal to Naurian physiology (much as it is to humans) and also highly corrosive. It is believed that this corrosive aspect of the atmospheric alteration is why there are no corpses or remains of the Naurian people, or the extinct wildlife, to study - everything has wasted away beyond dust by this point.
Naurian records state that the initial test firing of the antimatter weapon led to the destruction of a solar body they called "Aela". Following extensive stellar cartography scans of the Omicron Delta System, it has been determined that the spiral asteroid belt stretching from within the Palau Ice cloud into orbit of the system's Red star and Planet Vaitupu - what we now call the "Oreor Fragments" - is the remains of Aela.
Aela - henceforth referred to as Oreor - was a sister moon to Planet Nauru, orbiting alongside it around the gas giant Tuvalu. Like Nauru, Oreor was immensely rich in resources, and primarily in Iridium. We believe that, following the weapon test which struck Oreor, the planetoid broke apart and was pushed out of Tuvalu's orbit, with the greatest mass of the planet catching a La Grange orbital point between the system's two stars just within the Palau ice cloud. This debris field is frequently mined for raw Iridium to this day, and it is likely that - following the event that caused Oreor's destruction - the Daam K'vosh chose to mine Iridium from the fragments closer to the Azurite reactor's construction site, rather than mining on the surface of Nauru and struggling with transport out of the gravity well of Tuvalu.
The destruction of Oreor had profound effects on Nauru even before the K'vosh altered the planet's atmosphere. A massive shift in gravity caused by the vacant solar body would have led to unchecked earthquakes and storms on Nauru's surface, as well as possibly draining or destroying many of the subterranean water reservoirs that were the lifeblood of the Naurian people. In addition to suffocating to death, they may have suffered dehydration as well.
One key point that should be taken away from this study is that Naurian artifacts are not K'vosh or Nomad artifacts. In the past, relics from Nauru have been traded away just like the trinkets found on Crete or Sprague, and while they may look similar in some cases, what has been traded away might well never be recovered. Many relics exist on Nauru, littered throughout the ruins in all shapes and sizes, and yet we still know very little about what they are, or what they might have been used for.
Given that the Naurian people experienced little or no conflict prior to their encounter with the Daam K'vosh, it is highly unlikely that any relics or artifacts originating from Planet Nauru could be considered weapons. Most of what we have recovered and studied here suggests that these were everyday tools: scanners, lights, utility devices, health monitors, or even objects for simple entertainment purposes. What all of these relics have in common is a high concentration of Iridium, and a basis in antimatter technology. Antimatter cores power nearly every active relic that we've catalogued to date, and these cores are built on a smaller scale and have tested for higher efficiency than any modern antimatter reactor developed by humanity. Replicating these designs, however, is nearly impossible; we simply do not have the mastery of Iridium and Antimatter that the Naurians once did.
The most profound piece of technology in Naurian history, of course, is the antimatter weapon developed to combat the K'vosh. Unfortunately, this device has never been found; it is presumed that, due to the imminent threat it posed, the K'vosh likely dismantled or removed it from Nauru's surface shortly after the elimination of the Naurian species. Some technological schematics pertaining to the weapon have been recovered from the database, but these schematics are largely incomplete. We have noted, however, that the weapon seems to have been based heavily on smaller artifacts which were designed for tunneling into the planet's surface using a series of antimatter bursts to flash-vaporize earth and stone. Further research into this connection may prove useful in weaponizing Naurian technology.
As we move forward from this expedition, and dwell on what we've come to understand about Nauru and its ancient inhabitants, I believe we can begin to incorporate more Naurian technology into our own systems. There is a wealth of information stored within the Naurian database, and an even greater number of artifacts and relics which might be reverse engineered into useful advancements in fields ranging from medical to military.
Of course, all materials and information obtained from the ruin sites and database on Nauru are property of The Core, and so it will be up to the Core to decide how to proceed from here. My findings, of course, will be uploaded to the Core leadership and to my superiors at Advanced Products and Manufacturing for further analysis.
Contributed by: Damien Mekal, Head of APM Research & Development
Stellar Cartography Scans:
Omicron Delta
The APM R&D Flagship "Ailuros", under my command, has been working to complete advanced stellar cartography scans of the Omicron and surrounding systems for the past few weeks. The above image is a computer rendering of the current state of Omicron Delta, with a clear representation of the Binary Star System, Planets Vaitupu and Tuvalu, Nauru, The Palau Ice cloud, Kiribati Asteroid Fields, and Oreor fragment belt.
Advanced scans of orbital trajectories and field patterns have allowed us to determine that what has been long-called the "Oreor Fragments Ring" - something we've always presumed to be a long-lost solar body, possibly the result of a terrestrial collision - is, in fact, the moon referred to as "Aela" in Dr. Strauss' thesis. We've traced orbital paths for all stellar bodies in Omicron Delta and overlaid them onto the render below...
Roughly 40% of the mass contained within the Oreor ring spirals out into the Palau cloud, with the other 60% being dispersed over a much larger area, pulled into orbit of the Red Star and forming what we call the Oreor Belt. The portion of the Oreor fragments contained within the Palau Ice Cloud form the primary Iridium mining field within the system, an area contested over by Core and Order forces for more than a decade. At the head of this field lies the Azurite Reactor, which is housed within a massive Iridium-laced asteroid.
From this, we can surmise that Oreor - or Aela, as the ancient Naurians called it - was very similar to Nauru in composition, containing an extremely high concentration of Iridium within the planetary crust and core. The weapon test undertaken by the Naurians likely struck Aela, cracking the planetoid and pushing it out of Tuvalu's orbit as the Gas Giant made its annual pass through the edge of the Palau cloud. The highlighted areas of the render below detail the orbit of tuvalu, and the spiral-degrading orbit of the Oreor fragment, with the bulk of mass located in the Palau cloud...
I believe that the Daam K'vosh were likely more interested in the composition of gasses within the Palau cloud - which was integral for their creation of the Azurite Reactor - than in the local population of Nauru. However, as Tuvalu and its moons passed through the edge of Palau in their orbit, a first contact scenario occurred, and as detailed by Dr. Strauss' thesis had quite negative results. In an attempt to defend themselves against the assumed invaders, they created a weapon which they were unable to control, and destroyed Aela/Oreor in the process.
The Daam K'vosh likely took advantage of this situation, following their annihilation of the natives, by utilizing the core of Aela/Oreor to construct their reactor. The more concentrated iridium within the core, and the surrounding fragments, formed a rich source of the material just within the Palau Ice Cloud which even now, hundreds or thousands of years later, we continue to mine.
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