What is Real?

Chief Engineer’s Personal Log
Stardate 1010.1

Last time I spoke to Senkar, 10 years ago now, he told me that if I stayed my current course they would make a murderer out of me. I never imagined his words that day would have an element of truth.

The Void Lords’ realm was unreal, looking back on it none of it seems like it could have been real. From the impossible sky to the invisible bridge, the lift between realms, and the Hall of Worlds. As for the Void Lords themselves, a species living in a realm of which subspace is a part, cataloging worlds to add to their archive could easily be a plot out of a bad novel.

It was real though, I just have to look at the planks from the crates, at the cutlass Jorsh is carrying around to know that, and the worlds in the Hall were not tokens or models but in some way were the planets themselves. And because of that the entire population of one of their cataloged worlds is dead. And I killed them.

A Tragedy in Slow Motion

Chief Engineer’s Personal Log
Stardate 1007.1


Some events defy classification. A volcano eruption near a town is a tragedy. A quake destroying a city is a catastrophe. What’s happening here is far beyond either. The Brissid population effectively no longer exists. A fragment remains, but the dragons are still there, and that fragment is shrinking.

While we’ve got some minimal defenses against a lone dragon now, I suspect that even if the entire of Starfleet was here, we’d still have been outmatched if they had decided to attack.

Is the rift natural, or generated from somewhere? If it was generated for this attack, I would have expected it to be closer to Brissid, unless there are other considerations in play.

And where does that rift lead? To where the captives are, or to a horde of dragons? If we go through and it is the latter, it will not turn out well. The probe should get us enough information to decide on a course of action, if it works. If it fails to return useful information, I’m unsure what our next steps will be.


Falling into place

Chief Engineer’s Personal Log
Stardate 1006.8

I think I understand what happened now. The events we witnessed at Brissid were the final pieces I needed.

The initial power loss was due to the nebula’s energised state. The failure of emergency power may have been some effect of the dragons’, akin to what we experienced around the anomaly on Zheng’s World 3, or it may have been a further effect of the nebula state. It is supposed to be impossible to lose primary, auxiliary and emergency power at the same time, and both the shuttles and escape pods have independent power systems, so the first option seems the more likely.

With no power, no sensors, no shields, no engines, they would have had no chance to even see the attack. The dragons started by tearing through the main structural members, separating out the primary and secondary hulls and severing the nacelle struts. This is the same pattern that we saw with the Spica.

Then they ripped the ship apart, layer by layer, using their strange transporter-like effect on the people as they were exposed. Does their transporter effect not work through hull plating, or do they need to see their target to use it?

Afterwards the dragons headed in the direction of Zheng’s World, but returned to their subspace domain after a light year. Are the portals they used created from the originating domain and does it take time or energy to open? If so, it would explain why there’s been a trail from every attack, but one that disappears into empty space.

Understanding however does not bring answers, not the important ones, and there are still many things about this entire situation that I do not understand.

Like the reason behind all of this.

Like where the Gwuan fit into the picture.

Like the condition of those who were taken.