Valhalla One

15 A.S.

A survey team locates a strange structure of apparently artificial construction hidden deep within the Pike Mountains and undetectable by scanners. Upon investigation, scientists determine that the structure -- codenamed "Valhalla 1" -- is over 100,000 years old and almost certainly built by a non-human intelligence (NHI). It is the first sign of NHI that humanity has found in recorded history.

Valhalla 1 is immediately seized by the Liberty military and the site along with all information relating to it are declared national security secrets under the Omega Protocol. Breach of the Omega Protocol is considered high treason and is automatically punishable by solitary life imprisonment. All scientists and surveyors who have had prior access to the site are debriefed, quarantined, and subjected to intense psychological studies for six months. The unedited transcript of these sessions is known as the Valhalla Record, and even eight hundred years later it is still classified under the Omega Protocol and available only to the highest levels of the Liberty government and military.

Over the next year, military specialists attempt to gain access to Valhalla 1 which has so far proven impervious to all intrusion methods. A gifted physicist with a background in music, Dr. Wade Walker, finally manages to decode a portion of the inscription surrounding Valhalla 1 and finds that it equates a polyphonous musical scale to basic chemical elements. Using this knowledge, Dr. Walker manages to craft a "key" of musical tones that miraculously unseals Valhalla 1 for the first time in ages beyond counting...

Inside, scientists find a wealth of strange artifacts and holographic crystalline matrices that appear to be a form of document storage. Everything -- from the composition of the walls to the room temperature to the location of individual dust particles -- is recorded, filed, and eventually the objects are transported to the military research complex in Cheyenne. It will take them three years to even make a rudimentary translation of the table of contents on one crystalline cube.