Detailed info
- For some, M3-005 is a dream. A springboard to launch their careers, or the most important work of their lives - or even the Armada's!
- For others, it’s the freakiest horror show you can get without witnessing the sorry skinflap that is a Cortex grunt pilot with all his implants removed.
- Truth is, this rock right here is the biggest temporary excavation site since they were digging through what was left of Pluto. And lemme tell ya, way more interesting. Toxic fumes that peel ya layer by layer like a fruit, constant time pressure, the risk of being left stranded if you muck up and rile up your superiors - these are yer enemies on M3-005. Boredom is not. The Bailis ain't your enemies either, but be civil or they'll whack ya. No quarrels. Now go, help dig up some stiffs.
~Jantar Sutton, Veltari Chief Habitat Artificer, opening speech to new arrivals
M3-005 is what is called an Orphan Moon, or a Ploonet. Once, way before humanity’s star expansion started, it was a moon moving on a trajectory so eccentric that it broke off the gravitational pull of its planet. It spent over 3 millennia shooting through its star system, completely leaving it for a good while for Nullspace and getting lost in the Osiris Nebula, wrapped up in absolute zero temperature. It finally reconnected with the star pull of its system around OT-3700s and began the arduous trip back. Largely ignored or outright omitted in humanity’s space endeavours, it came to Armada’s attention quite recently and not a moment too soon, all because of a shocking discovery.
M3-005 used to be inhabited by sentient extraterrestrial species.
The origins of semi-humanoids that lived on the moon remain unknown, its home planet no longer present within the system. It got even more astounding when it came to the attention of the researchers that the xeno species had put up a fierce, stubborn fight against time for their existence, and that they were still a functioning community at the time of leaving the system, in conditions defying all life expectancy. Ending up preserved in the moon's version of surface liquid, aluminium chloride, they were caught in various acts of defiance against their end and, with time, became the symbol of determination and unyielding evolution worthy of the Horizon.
The research ambitions connected to the discovery exploded within Armada, with houses and sub-houses almost trampling one another in their rush to the site. There came a moment after which negotiator-enforcers from Baili sub-house became necessary to avoid open, internal bloodshed. All this, while time was of the essence - approaching its home star reheated the frigid crust of M3-005 anew. While the absolute zero is a viable way to preserve DNA, being encased in a layer of frozen (and slowly melting), highly acidic liquid is a biological equivalent of a self-deleting message.
Once again, the moon bears witness to a desperate struggle against time.
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Locations
Azurite Shores
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Hyperion Shale
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