CHAPTER 013: Elysium II

Adam Rytman

TCS Cutlass/Hypergate Corridor

Long War

18 April 2547, 12:32

“So, how does the FTL travel work?” I might take the occasion to finally learn something conclusive.

“By opening a hole to Hyperspace.” That doesn’t tell me a lot. “It’s another dimension. Different from our own. Its most important trait is that space there is more compressed. Right now we are travelling with a speed around one-tent lightspeed, 0,1c in other words. However, since Hyperspace is more spatially compressed, one kilometre here might mean ten kilometres in Realspace. Or a hundred kilometres. Or a thousand kilometres. The exact rate of compression varies. Extremely high for hyperlanes, very high for Hypergates, much lesser normally and even then it’s random.”

Riiight.

“Now, because of that, we can reach the exit point that’s 327ly from the entry point in merely three hours. Which means about 1,8ly per minute. So, 14.19 trillion kilometres per minute. Lightspeed is about 18 million kilometres per minute. So, in a crude approximation, we are travelling with a speed of 777 777c. Unless I made a mistake in the calculation since I’m too lazy to fire up the calculating program.” When I looked at her weirdly, she continued. “I told you, as a Class Four AI I’m essentially a human living inside the computer. You get superhuman only as a Class Five.”

Hmph. So the AI that’s responsible for preventing our ship from exploding can make calculating mistakes.

I guess she checks things properly when it’s important.

I hope she checks things properly when it’s important.

“It’s normal to travel around with such a speed?” It’s pretty fast, right?

“Only hyperlanes and Hypergates. Though the Hypergate going into the Pontifex System—which was found by the Truthseekers Corporation—was the first one found ever. So only hyperlanes are statistically important. They are actually compressed even more, to the point of the transit being practically instant.” Looks like even the Precursors couldn’t rival that. “Normally the Hyperspace’s rate of compression is much lower. So, for example, the 4,7ly distance from Solar System to Alpha Centauri would take a week. Which gives us…”

“Alright, enough.” I sighed. “Several light years mean several days. Might be more, might be less.” She nodded. “Unless you are travelling by the hyperlane or a Hypergate. Then it’s much faster.” She nodded again. ”For the future: spare me the numbers. Also, what exactly is Hyperspace?” There should be an explanation for that, right?

She shrugged.

“No idea.” What? “First manned jump into Hyperspace happened in 2071.” Well, I guess I figured out the point of divergence between the real world and the Long War universe. “Since then generations of scientists tried to figure out what exactly Hyperspace is, and how it comes to be. Without even the slightest success.”

“So, you know how the Hyperdrive works… but you know nothing about this Hyperspace it sends you through?!” Seriously, WTF.

“Well, we know Hyperspace exist. We have a lot of practical knowledge about what it looks like. We only lack a believable scientific theory that would explain how it was created.” She shrugged. “Some claim it predates the Big Bang, and because of that trying to find any sense in it is useless. Since it’s an aftermath of a collapsed universe, created under different laws of physics. But, frankly, any theory is as good as any other.”

I see. It just is. And as long as it works...

It allows you to construct an interstellar civilization. So… why trouble yourself with details that seem to be out of your range?

Then again, the Precursors seemed to have figured enough of its secrets to construct Hypergates. They really seem as tech-Gods. No wonder the Corporation was SO interested in them.

“We’re close to the exit.” Nymphae suddenly said. “We will reenter Realspace in one minute.” Ahead of schedule, I think. Well, whatever. “According to the last beacon, the system in front of us was called Elysium.” Interesting. But not for now.

I activated intercom.

“We are returning to Realspace in one minute. Battle stations.” I switched off the intercom and turned towards Nymphae. “Next time call me earlier, ok? One minute is too little.”

“Right, right.” She scattered more a cloud of pixie dust and disappeared somewhere.

Sigh.

***

TCS Cutlass/Elysium System

Long War

18 April 2547, 12:42

The exit was… shaky. The ship trembled a lot, and some things fell down. People haven’t - the suits avoided it, they kinda glued them to the ground when that happened.

The monitor was empty. Nympha…

“We are still boiling after travelling through Hyperspace.” She interrupted me. “It will take a short while for the thermal sensors to adjust. In the meantime I’m running the scans through the visual and gravity sensors, and... “ Suddenly she froze. “No. Fucking. Way.”

It was the first time (I think) that I heard her swearing. Needless to say, I was terrified.

“I think Pontifex wasn’t the Precursor’s capital system.” She finally said, her tone… empty and almost mechanical.

Then the sensors finally worked properly. And I saw what she saw. And so did the rest of the crew on the bridge.

Nothing but shock. And utter silence.

“Nymphae, what is …” I uttered.

“Dyson Sphere.” She answered. ”A megastructure. You take a star, then encase it in what’s essentially hyper-advanced solar panels together with a frame that makes them all into one, big, and resistant construction. Thus gaining access to 100% of the star’s energy output.”

“It’s… not something easy to do right?” It’s a blue giant. These things are huge. And the Sphere obviously has to be bigger.

“Easy to do? Are you insane?!” She suddenly exploded. “This star’s surface area is about 7,5 quadrillion kilometres. And the Precursors encased it in solid, MANMADE construction. There is no star system outside. Precursors must have dismantled literally everything there was, be it planets, moons, asteroids, comets. EVERYTHING.”

“Just… how much energy are we talking about?” She looked at me, her eyes still filled with shock.

“An equivalent to the combined output of several VIGINTILLIONS of state-of-the-art nuclear reactors.” I have no words at this point. “Octillion watts of pure energy.”

I brought myself out of the stupor. And I communicated what I learned to the others in the room.

Several of the Choir crew members had knowledge in the field of astrophysics. The truth hit them the strongest. Understanding that there were guys capable of doing stuff like that - one jump away from their homes - really makes you feel insignificant.

“It’s not finished.” Nymphae suddenly said.

Yeah, I could see it now. There were… holes. You could see the star inside.

“I estimate they constructed around 30% of the entire construction. The frame is mostly done, but the rest barely started. Which still meant gathering an insane amount of energy. I can’t even imagine why they required so much… wait a second.”

What is it now?!

“A ring.” What?! Suddenly a part of the Sphere was highlighted on the monitor. It was… like an equator? I DON’T KNOW THE RIGHT WORDS FOR THAT. “It’s an incomplete Ringworld. Another megastructure. It’s surrounding the Sphere, that’s probably redirecting some star’s power at it, making sure that there’s always the perfect temperature.”

“Ringworld?” MY PAST SCI-FI VIDEOGAMES DIDN’T PREPARE ME FOR THAT.

“Imagine the massive ring surrounding the planet, with the ‘inner’ side of covered in… well, an artificial world.” I… think I can imagine it. More or less. ”It’s essentially Earth. Only a bit bigger.”

“A bit?” I think I won’t like the answer.

“Earth’s Equator is around 50 thousand kilometres.” She looked at me, still visibly shocked. ”If they finished building that Ringworld, it would be like Earth… only with the Equator being over 300 million kilometres long.”

I’ve already run out of words to describe or comment that. Now I’m also running out of thoughts to think about it.

“They constructed the ring’s frame. But with the living space, they seem to have barely started.” She chuckled. “This ‘barely started’ would still fit about one hundred billion people. Plus-minus fifty, depending on the density.”

“Are all precursor species like that?” She shook her head.

“I think the Precursors were playing in a different league. A hundred times more powerful than the Corporation expected in their craziest dreams. We know of some ancient civilizations that seemed to be able to rival them in terms of technological prowess. But nobody has ever seen a thing like that.”

“Rival them?” There is something weird here, but I can’t pinpoint it.

“Well, most of the hyper-advanced ancient species we identified are pretty equal in terms of a technological edge. Which is yet another cause for various conspiracy theories and weird mysticism. It’s all about the more… mundane things. If Humanity united itself and coordinated its entire industrial output, manpower and technological prowess, it might be capable of building a megastructure in a reasonable timeframe. One or two centuries.”

Which, I presume, isn’t possible.

“There are actually some ongoing attempts on Ringworld constructions, but on much smaller stars. And none of them reached the level of actually creating the living space.” She continued… and, finally, concluded.

So, I know what made little sense. If the Precursors were a local thing, they wouldn’t have the manpower, industrial power and resources to assemble a construction of that magnitude.

But if they were a superpower, why does nobody EVER find a single sign of them?! Why did the Corporation consider them one more slightly interesting ancient civilization… and ONLY because of Diamond’s magic?

“Well, you are both right and wrong.” Nymphae answered. “The space inhabited by a single species is rarely greater than three or so hundred light years in diameter. Sometimes in radius. Most bigger countries ultimately collapse.”

Makes sense. It’s hard to construct a country (or even remain more or less similar in terms of culture and so on) when traversing your territory takes several months. Both logistics and administration end up collapsing.

Unless you can connect your systems with Hypergates.

“Well, Humanity has at least the vestiges of unity mostly because of Hyperlanes playing precisely that role.” Nymphae agreed. “Dozens, if not hundreds, of star sectors. All of them built around the exit of the hyperlane coming from already settled lands. But… these pockets are hundreds, sometimes thousands of light years apart. The Precursors could theoretically fit inside. But… they had at least a single Hypergate close enough to settled human space that the Corporation uncovered.”

Oh. “And if they had it, why they didn’t expand throughout the current Human hyperlanes?” She nodded in answer.

“Precisely. They had a hundred potential star sectors they could access. And yet… it’s like they were purposefully hiding from Mankind.” She shook her head. “Prehumans meeting current humans shouldn’t be in any way a problem. No universe-destroying paradoxes. Besides, their civilization started around 3000 years ago. They supposedly achieved the peak of their power two thousand years ago. They had around 1700 years in front before Humans from Earth would visit the area. No civilization on this level of power can reasonably expect to still be around 1700 years in even remotely similar form. They either… change too much, ascend to another plane of existence or end up dying. Yet they continued to hide.”

“One more mystery for us to uncover.” I said, smiling at her. Reassuringly. I hope.

“Looks like the place was raided.” Einstein said interrupting my talk with Nymphae. ”I run a lot of detailed scans on the megastructure. I detect signs of extensive bombardment. All the ringworld’s living segments were thoroughly trashed, even if the ring itself seems mostly untouched. The sphere was bombarded as well, but I think it might have been caused by stray shots during the ring’s bombardment.”

“Wait… didn’t Nymphae estimate that the finished segments could hold… a hundred billion of inhabitants?” Einstein nodded in response.

I think we stumbled upon the aftermath of the greatest act of genocide in history. Though, to be honest, there is no way of figuring out exactly how many people were there when the bombardment started.

Destroying a partially finished Dyson Sphere and Ringworld combination that could give housing and unlimited power to (if finished) literally every human in the Galaxy feels like an atrocity on its own.

It could as well be the skeleton crew (still a few billion people) working on the Ring construction.

“I think I also figured out how they constructed it.” Nymphae froze in the background. She was probably checking the data Einstein found. “And you will not like it.”

Then she showed me.

Numbers’.

The visual sensors were essentially a telescope of epic proportions. She used them to show us the close-up of the Ring. There were Numbers’ there. I wasn’t even going to guess how many of them. They all stood there. Sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. Sometimes with what I presumed to be building materials. All of them frozen.

They didn’t look active.

“Well, having an army of tireless workers might explain how they achieved that.” I commented. ”And they could even use the already finished part of the Sphere to collect power for the Numbers’.”

Einstein looked for a second like she was thinking hard whether she should say something. Before she spoke.

“Well… I think you should be more worried about that.” What is it now? “I’m not sure how time-resistant the Numbers’ truly are, but… I think even in the worst case scenario, most of the machines we are seeing are probably repairable.”

… Oh fuck.

“How… how many of them do you think there are? Give me your estimates.”

“Here. But you won’t like it.”

She was right. I didn’t like it.

Shalyn saw them too. She didn’t like it.

Well, we discovered that Numbers’ had more potential manpower than the combined number of all mammals on Diamond. This could easily bring one to despair.

“Well, for now, they do not work. They, in fact, might not be capable of working at all, so no need to get traumatized.” Let’s avoid scaring the Choir’s crew member too much. “All we know for sure is that the Precursors were awesome and that Numbers’ were their working drones.”

“Awesome, and scary.” Shalyn commented.

I shrugged. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be afraid of the Precursors.” She looked at me questioningly. “I’d be afraid of those that exterminated them.”

***

TCS Cutlass/Elysium System

Long War

18 April 2547, 14:12

Twenty-seven.

After a thorough scan, we found twenty-seven Hypergates in the Elysium system. Twenty-fucking-seven. Corporation thought that Pontifex was the Precursors’ capital because it had a whole FIVE Hypergates.

Then again, it was sensible. The construction of the Sphere had to require an insane amount of resources. Even after they dismantled literally every single object in the Elysium system.

We also detected a lot of other installations. We couldn’t figure out the reason for them. Didn’t matter much as the Archenemy (that seemed to be the most probable culprit) has thoroughly bombarded everything.

They had to REALLY hate the Precursors.

We had a talk. Me, Shalyn, Nymphae and Einstein. Though it was mostly Nymphae talking about how alien aliens are, only to end up admitting that even the most alien out of aliens would still engage in even the bloodiest possible ground combat to secure a prize that big.

So the only possible alternative was a species (or something akin to that) that was downright omnicidal. That Nymphae could easily give me SEVERAL names and types of such permanent threats to everything alive in the Galaxy was sad.

Wonderful.

For now, we lacked the knowledge to figure out what exactly happened here. Well, we can say (with 99% certainty) that the Precursors were happily building the absolute peak achievement of science and engineering - while using the Numbers’ as workers - but then the Archenemy knocked on their door.

After about an hour of an extensive search, the Einstein/Nymphae duo detected something else.

“It’s a fleet.” Nymphae informed me. ”It’s surrounding one of the Hypergates. Close to our position. Fifty minutes of flight without using the Phaseshift Drive.”

“Fleet? Weren’t we supposed to detect fleets on the other side of the system easily?”

“Well, that one’s dead and cold.” Oh. “We detect lots of wrecks. All of those I took a look at via visual sensors seem to be Precursor in origin.”

So, either the Archenemy cleaned after its visit… or guys able to build a Dyson Sphere around a blue giant were so outmatched that they did not destroy even one of the enemy ships. I prefer the former, obviously.

“Normally, we wouldn’t be able to detect them so easily.” Nymphae continued. “But at least a part of the navigational data from the Alum seems to point towards their general direction.” She was silent for a second. “I’m also detecting a faint thermal signature.”

I took a short while to figure out what she meant.

“Wait… you say something there has an active power source?!” Even the Dyson Sphere was dead. Not cold (too close to the star, obviously), but definitely as dead as you can get.

“Yes. It’s faint. Very faint. But as to where exactly it is... “

Then she showed us a picture.

Once again we all were left temporarily speechless. It was a ship. Almost torn into pieces, with most of its outer hull turned into a scarred parody of what it once was. But there were still some artillery towers left here and there.

What left us speechless was the size.

“I believe it to be a goliath.” Nymphae said. “Above cruisers and capital ships there are leviathans. Built to annihilate fleets, or serve as flagships of entire navies. While carrying weapons that can sometimes have the size of a battleship. Few in the Galaxy. Goliaths are the biggest subtype, like battlecruisers for cruisers and dreadnoughts for capital ships. Each of them might take fifty or sixty years to construct.”

The image was showing the estimates of the size. The length itself was close to sixty kilometres.

I understand that space is big. And resources are almost endless. But this is a mean of compensating for something. Even if it takes half a century to assemble. Especially if takes half a century to assemble.

This thing is essentially a weaponized, movable megastructure. Ok, small megastructure. But still.

I can’t even imagine the firepower that was required to bring it down.

“Well, the whole mankind probably has close to one hundred leviathans.” Nymphae continued. ”Out of that, maybe five or six are goliaths.” Wait… did she said… ONE HUNDRED?! “Most of them are colossi, that are ‘merely’ up to ten kilometres long.”

“Einstein, did you see a name on this ship?” Shalyn suddenly barged in the talk. Well, she didn’t know I was speaking with Nymphae. So it wasn’t really a barge in. “Most ships had their names written on them, right?” What is it now?

“Well, yes.” Einstein answered. “I was about to move on to th…”

“Is it ‘Ockham’s Razor’?” Shalyn interrupted her. Einstein made a face of surprise.

“How did you…” Yeah, I’m kinda interested in that as well.

“Well… our Scripture mentions the Precursors only a few times.” Shalyn really looked like she saw the ghost. That’s probably not good. “But we have many legends from many parts of the world. We learn about them as a part of religious education. They are not considered sacred and divinely inspired, but many of the events written in them are considered canon by the Church. Especially when many of them agree upon something.”

She paused for a second, giving us the time to swallow that rather too long prologue. Then she continued.

“According to many of them, when the Precursors understood that they were losing the war with the Archenemy, their last, most powerful fortress… or hideout, depending on the version of the myth. It was supposed to be guarded by their most powerful weapon of war… namely, the Ockham’s Razor.” She sighed. “We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the name meant.”

“We’ll be able to help with that.” I said. She nodded.

“According to some stories, they were also trying to create… a gamechanger. Something that would allow them to triumph over the Archenemy. Though I guess they failed.”

Yeah. Hard to disagree with that. Unless getting wiped out was a part of the plan. Unlikely, to say the least.

“Alright.” I concluded our little council. ”Unless any of you have a better idea, I think we should board the Ockham’s Razor… and find out what exactly is still active there.”