Pod and Planet YC 120 - The Lost Wormholers

I was asleep. At least I think I was asleep. I had been engaged in archaeological data recovery in J154538 but my shift was over. Rather than return to the relative safety of empire space, I had chosen to spend the night in the wormhole system. This would enable me to get an early start the next day. I distinctly remembered powering down my Loki-class strategic cruiser and catching some shut-eye. Here I was now, however, sitting cross-legged by a campfire. Across from me was a tired old face. The old man began to talk.

    "You shouldn't be here."

He was right about that. I knew exactly where I should be. In fact, I knew a great many places I could be. But neither the 'should's nor the 'could's involved a campfire.

    "You have to leave."

    "E.. e.. excuse me?" I stammered in response. "Who exactly are you? And why should I do anything you tell me?", I gained confidence hearing myself talk.

The old man sat back with an amused look on his face. "Who am I?" he smiled, "Well, now, I guess we've just about got time to tell that tale."

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    "It all started with the Seyllin Incident," the man began, "I assume you know of it?"

Of course, I knew of it. Anyone who dared venture into the depths of wormhole space was familiar with the dawn of access from New Eden. In YC111 several massive explosions were triggered all across New Eden. These were initiated deep in the lawless regions of null security space when a Thukker captain opened fire to destroy a cache of the rare isogen-5 mineral. The captain could not have known the cache he destroyed was entangled with the various other caches across New Eden. He would also never know the absolute power he had unleashed on his universe. Although several solar systems experienced their own cataclysmic devastation, nowhere was it felt so strongly as the system of Seyllin. Despite the best attempts of Gallente, CONCORD, and even Serpentis aid fleets, half a billion souls were lost. Their loss, however, was our gain and a whole new, uncharted realm of space was opened up for exploitation.

    "Once the wormholes opened", the old man continued "there was a rush of the most intrepid explorers into these new reaches of space. Few could refuse to journey into the unknown."

He went on the paint a picture of uncertainty and danger. Things long since lost to the modern tourists who venture into the area of space also known as Anoikis. He told me about the first, deadly, encounters with the Sleepers where a great many ships were lost. The golden era when artefacts and materials brought back from expeditions would make even the laziest capsuleer rich beyond their wildest dreams.

    "And that's when the most daring of us contemplated living there permanently. We amassed a large fleet of colonists, our friends, our families, and flew our entire lives there. We felt invincible." 

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    "The riches we achieved once we were actually living in wormhole space far exceeded our expectations."

My friend painted an almost unbelievable picture of Anoikis in its glorious heyday; greatly understood but still dangerous to the incautious. In an era before scanning systems became mostly automated it took real skill to place and optimise each individual probe into an optimal formation. For those who mastered the skill, the reward was an increased depth of influence through the ephemeral wormhole connections and even greater rewards.

    "The Sleepers were eternally ready to destroy all who challenged them but actually living in their space brought a greater knowledge of how to defeat them. We even came to master the physics of the wormholes themselves. We learnt that with enough ships we could prematurely collapse a connection to another system. This allowed us greater control over who and where our neighbours were. We lived in safe impunity. Nothing could touch us.

    "We grew fat in our excesses. We had more ISK than we could sensibly spend. Our ships were ever more extravagant. The best modules were imported from Jita. Then we built capital ships. The Sleepers were no match. Not in our low-class system.

    "With the riches, of course, came those who would take it from us rather than do the work themselves. Pirates, thieves, turncoats who would live as one of us only to take what wasn't theirs and flee. None of that mattered, though. We had enough assets saved that whatever was taken we could simply replace it."

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    "Then something changed. I was scanning to update our current charts. All known connections had expired and scanning showed we only had one new wormhole. This was unusual because we'd always known our home to have two connections, one deeper into wormhole space and the other back to the known regions of empire space.

    "I approached the single outbound connection and saw it led into another wormhole system. My group wasn't unduly concerned. Nature changes over time and a new, unexplained phenomenon were welcomed. The absolute worst case we would have an extra hop to make to reach known regions of space.

    "I jumped through the connection to start mapping our new neighbour. Once my transit of the wormhole was complete I was more than a little confused to find myself still in my home system, albeit now more than 6 AU from my original location.

    "I surprised my fleet by warping to them and relayed what had happened. My experience was repeated by several other pilots before we decided to collapse the connection. Nobody expected the next connection to also connect to our home system, but that's exactly what happened. Time and time again we collapsed the single link we had. Every single time the new wormhole that coalesced led right back into the same system."

There was a remembered fear discernible in the old man's voice now. With some urgency, he relayed how his entire corporation spent days upon days doing nothing but running ship after ship through connection after connection. And day after day the only connection they were rewarded with returned them back to their starting point.

    "Panic killed the corporation. Fighting broke out. In our despair, we turned on each other. And that's when some of us decided to abandon everything we had. With a heavy heart, I set the self-destruct timer on my capsule and waited to awake in a new clone.

    "The new clone never came. Even with my death, there was no escape from our home. This was different, though. We were now free from the restrictions placed on us by our pods. We still could not go back to empire space, but we could venture to other areas of Anoikis."

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    "In our ethereal travels through many, many systems we became aware that wormhole space was becoming ever densely populated. Corporation after corporation were following in our footsteps and settling new space. Concern increased that the plight of everyone we cared about would become more common. We were worried that others would become forever trapped in Anoikis as we had. We needed to take action.

The old man's face turned even sadder and he sat in silence for some time before I prompted him to continue the tale.

    "I discovered it was possible to infiltrate the dreams of capsuleers as they slept in their ships. At first, we tried to explain what had happened. What fate befell us. We only wanted to warn others away. But none would listen.

    "Some of our number turned to more radical methods. They would return night after night after night. The living got no rest. They would show horrific scenes of destruction to the capsuleers. Show them their loved ones being massacred by massive fleets of Sleepers. Some left wormholes for good, many more stayed.

As the old man continued to talk I remembered hearing tales of haunted wormholes. The tales all related to a mythical being everyone called 'Bob'. I didn't think anyone believed in the actual existence of 'Bob', but could the tales of haunting currently being told be the grain of truth in the legend?

My guest was silent. My mind had been wondering during his tale and he clearly knew. "Yes, Bob," he said, "some of that may relate to us. But not all, not by a long way."

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    "It became clear that the few capsuleers we were able to drive from Anoikis were rapidly replaced by just as many new souls. A new tactic was needed. We could communicate with the sleeping. What could we do with those who were awake?

    "We started small. Initially, we experimented with the subconscious of the capsuleers. Disabling ship modules at inconvenient times turned out to be trivial. Deactivating armour plates or prop-mods during hole-rolling exercises led to massive frustration. As an unexpected bonus, our victims had a tendency for blaming each other for it. They would accuse each other of borrowing ships they weren't rated to fly.

    "We also forced the inaccurate creation of navigation bookmarks. Once again, this spawned many arguments that the bookmarks were deliberate sabotage. But still, newcomers came. We had to up our game and get more imaginative. It was a short leap from there to taking control of the entire ship.

    "Once we made that transition, driving people out became easy. We took control of entire corporations of pilots and forced them to hunt their fellow capsuleers. Of course, their minds attempted to resist. Tied to their corporeal forms they were no match for us. Day after day we would treat the pilots as our puppets of destruction. Locked in their ships and in their pods they were mere passengers.

The old man's eyes were ablaze now as he went on to relate his tale of violent conflicts. The ease by which they were able to infiltrate apparent safe systems simply by taking control of a pilot in the target location and forcing them to turn traitor against their will.

    "Finally, our mission was working. People were fleeing wormhole space. First, there were tens of empty system. Then there were hundreds. Today there are thousands, but my job is not yet complete. There are still a few pockets of resistance to drive out. And once they are gone, and wormhole space is once more uninhabited, then I can rest."

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So now I hunt for him. I am a prisoner in my own ship. I find myself helpless in battles I never committed to. I am a passenger; I can only watch. I feel him there. I struggle against him with no effect. I can sense his amusement when I try. And still, he strives to drive all from Anoikis. To deliver J-space back to Bob. And then I, too, can rest.

Pod and Planet Results

The Pod and Planet Fiction Contest results were announced today. I was delighted to learn that my story, Blood Frenzy, won second prize in its category. Congratulations to all the other winners. I'm still working my way through the stories but the ones I have read so far were really good. Well done to everyone who entered for managing to complete their tale in time. For me that was the bigger challenge with creating the short story. Readers telling me they enjoyed my tale was satisfying enough. Winning any prize really is a bonus and I'll be sure to spend the ISK on ships which get lost in an irresponsible manner. I'd also like to draw special attention to my corp mate Brodit's entry which I enjoyed reading but sadly didn't place.

The basic idea behind my story was true. As a corp we had more fun than we had expected running those Blood Raider sites over Halloween. Anytime we rolled a new hole and there were sites to run we genuinely did throw regard to the wind and flood in to the system fanning out to clear them as quick as possible. We did so in Combat Recons to minimise the chance people would spot us on d-scan. Sometimes we would fly with one visible ship to act as bait. The hope being someone would spot a Svipul on d-scan and come to kill it, not expecting a handful of Curses to also be in-site already. Sadly we never got any kills that way but the hope was there.

Unlike in my story, there was very little or no hoarding of the boosters and loot from the site. Everyone made sure that anyone active would have their little booster timer slowly counting down. I think we maybe all gained an extra 50,000 skill points during the event which isn't much when you really think about it. Still, the sense of community within my corp during this event made me feel proud. I have seen videos of people out in nullsec ninja-looting before their fleetmates got a chance and that's not the corp spirit I would want to nurture.

Amusingly I'm already considering the next entry to Pod and Planet despite that being a year away.

Pod and Planet YC117 - Blood Frenzy

October 21 YC 117

I technically don't need to sleep. Capsuleers who spend weeks and months living in inhospitable solar systems behind unpredictable wormhole connections have invented an analogue to sleep. By turning off all ship sensors you plunge the brain into a state where it is forced to create imagery to fill the resulting void. It's not sleep but it feels like dreams and you only dream when you're asleep, right? Today I awoke as my Loki-class Strategic Cruiser gently filtered in external signals. As usual I was drifting somewhere deep in space. Comms crackled to life and my corp mate, a gruff Matari by the name of Bukur, noted my appearance in the standing fleet. "About time you showed up. Check your sensors. Do you see anything odd?"

It didn't take long to spot an unfamiliar 'Blood Raider Gauntlet' beacon being reported by my ship's sensors. This was disturbing. How had the Blood Raiders gotten into our system? None of our scouts had reported any activity whilst I slept, yet here we could see an encampment of the feared Blood Raider cult. Not only that, it was being broadcast for all comers to see, unlike anything else we normally found in wormhole space. "Come on then, move your arse and let's clear them out", I was jostled into action by Bukur.

Until I choose otherwise, while I am with my ship I am essentially immortal. This knowledge did little to calm me as we warped to the unfamiliar beacon. Whilst dying wasn't a problem, replacing the ship I was in and getting back home could be. Wormhole connections can be a fickle mistress and we currently had no known connections to Empire-controlled space. Landing at the beacon things grew stranger yet. The opposing force was a trivial fleet of frigates but they were guarding an acceleration gate. The Blood Raiders invasion party had not only managed to secretly infiltrate our home system but had also taken the required supplies to insert themselves into a deadspace pocket. Something I had never seen before in a wormhole system.

Clearing the gate guards and their reinforcements was no trouble for Bukur and my cruisers. We had to press on deeper into the unknown. I invited Bukur to be first in. He declined, "Why don't you risk your own bloody ship for a change?", a challenge I couldn't refuse even though I wanted to. In the deadspace pocket the challenge was marginally greater but once again the forces of the Blood Raiders were no match for a pair of capsuleers in Strategic Cruisers and they died rapidly. Of all the ships we destroyed only one of them had any salvageable cargo. The cargo was something neither of us had seen before. My ship identified it as a booster of type 'Blood Raiders Cerebral Accelerator' but was unable to give any further information about its effects. Maybe we hadn't yet passed the final hurdle into the unknown. Maybe we were looking at it now. Bukur volunteered to be first to try the booster. As he said, exploring the unknown was what we were originally out here for and it was a long time since we'd encountered the unknown.

"How does it feel", I was eager to know what the mysterious booster's effects were. The Blood Raiders were a slightly ghoulish cult and something purporting to accelerate your brain could mean just about anything, good or bad. The answer didn't help, "Well it's hard to explain, everything just feels more somehow".  While we were waiting for something more tangible than "feeling more" our ships alerted us to another Blood Raider beacon. I nudged my ship in the correct direction, "I guess we should deal with that as well. Maybe they'll have one of these accelerators for me to try", and with that I entered warp.

We destroyed this second outpost with the same efficiency as the first and, once again, the only thing we could salvage from any of the wrecks was the mysterious booster. Why were they here with a single booster? Was there something special about wormhole space the Blood Raiders needed to do something with this booster? Our pondering was interrupted by Bukur who realised his background skill training had ended some hours earlier than expected. On a hunch I quickly popped my own booster and immediately confirmed our suspicions by noting my training towards the final level of fleet commander was scheduled to complete almost two weeks early. The boosters somehow increased our capacity for learning.

October 23 YC 117

In the middle of today's operations a terrible thing happened. It was like the universe collapsed in on me. The utopian enlightenment I had enjoyed for more than a day now ended with a brain shattering crash.
"You might have warned me how bad this would be!"
"No idea what you're on about" was Bukur's response to my accusation, "my booster is still working."
This discovery led to some speculation as to why I was experiencing lower longevity in the effects of the Blood Raider booster. Could there be differences in purity or dose size? Was there some inherent biological difference between myself as a Gallente and Bukur as a Matari? Was there anything I could do to increase how long a single dose lasted? I resolved to dedicate some time to that later. The secrets of this wonder drug were ripe for discovery

My comedown was still in full effect and now, seeing how I had been affected, Bukur was incredibly keen to start building up a stock of boosters. We enlisted the help of more members of our corporation, explaining the wonderful benefits but leaving out the crushing feeling when the booster effects wore off. To be honest, once people heard their background training time would shorten they pretty much stopped listening anyway. With our fleet much enlarged we spread out exploring our constellation for more beacons. We deliberately collapsed one of our wormhole connections knowing this would likely result in a new connection to be formed elsewhere. As expected it did and we all raced each other to be the first into the new destination.

"Holy shit, get in here now", I was the first to jump in and couldn't believe my eyes. Not one, not two, but eight beacons were detected by my ship's sensors. The Blood Raiders had a good hold on this system and were likely far along with their plans, whatever those plans may be. Expecting his booster to run out any time soon Bukur sped past me and straight towards the nearest beacon. We had run no intel on the system. We didn't know if anyone lived there. Still the rest of us followed suit. This was very bad procedure for us. Anyone could be hiding in this unexplored system. If they were this could easily result in the death of all our ships.

Poor Blood Raiders could never had known what hit them as we rained death on their installations. It was a massacre. With our fleet swooping from beacon to beacon the Blood Raiders didn't stand a chance. By the end we had enough boosters for the entire fleet plus a couple spare. Everyone was basking in a warm glow having consumed theirs. They didn't know what awaited them once the booster was spent but I did. "Come on guys, let's see if we can find any more of these. Show them to keep away from our space", I tried to encourage people but they didn't understand my urgency. They simply crept away to their own private corners of space to enjoy the feeling. I was more driven. I couldn't get my mind away from the temporary nature of the booster. I needed to store more boosters. I almost regretted having brought the others into the system with all these sites. I should have kept them for myself. Just as I was about to return home with everyone else another beacon lit up on my sensors. I opened comms to let everyone know but then stopped myself. This site was mine. This would be my spare.

October 27 YC 117

It has been a few days since my last entry. There has been a steady decline in the appearance of our Blood Raider friends. At first we were able to keep our fleet well supplied with these drugs. Then the beacons started presenting themselves less and less frequently. At first this pressed us out exploring more and more. Then we started taking risks with our ships. We ignored all security protocols. On discovering a new beacon it was a race to see who could get there first. If there were multiple targets we spread out providing little or no protection to each other. It's a miracle we didn't lose anyone during these reckless exploits. Most importantly, however, we were able to keep ourselves dosed up on this Blood Raider mana. As we did each fleet member crawled off to their own private corner of the solar system to be alone with the drug. Socialising ceased to matter. I even started instructing my ship to wake me earlier and earlier in the hope I could fly alone and beat the others to virgin sites. I wanted to build a private stash. I was having to roam longer and further, taking all the risks of solo flight through potential hostile systems. Eventually it was evident that no new sites were being discovered and I retreated with my stockpile of boosters.

Waking up today an initial wave of panic washed over me. I spotted wrecks on my scanners and immediately assumed I had missed a now rare occurrence of Blood Raider detection. Panic was replaced by disbelief when I realised these were not Blood Raider wrecks I was seeing on my ship systems. These wrecks were of other capsuleer ships and there were a lot of them. Comms were quiet. Only Bukur was showing any presence in the corporation comms channels but he wasn't responding to my hails. In spite of the warm blanket of Blood Raider delight I had to investigate what had happened. With probes on my ship I was able to locate one group of wrecks. From markings I recognised them all as destroyed ships belonging to members of my corporation. In some cases individuals had lost more than one ship. Clearly whatever had occurred during my absence had been catastrophic for the others. As I sat at the edge of the battlefield I had a sudden realisation. If these were the ships belonging to people who had been attacking the Blood Raiders with me then there was a good chance of some surviving drugs in their cargo.

I was in the middle of the field of wreckage. Despite all the usual ammo, repair paste and other expected cargo, for all the ships I had searched there was not a single unit of booster. Either I was incredibly unlucky or someone had gotten to the wrecks before me. Normally, though, these wrecks would have been picked clean. With that thought fresh in my head sensors made me aware of another ship in close proximity to me. I identified it as belonging to Bukur and tried to hail him on the normal comms channels. "Give me your Boosters," he announced his hostility both verbally and by remotely disabling the warp drive of my Loki.
"Bukur, I don't have any left," I answered truthfully, "how about we go exploring for more?"
"There aren't any more. I was forced to take what drugs I could from the others but there's nothing left of those either. I need your stash."

Autocannon rounds started eating rapidly into my shields before I was able to pull range and reduce the incoming damage to more manageable levels. "Bukur, what are you doing?" I couldn't believe what was happening. Had our close knit group been eroded so far in such a short period of time? Had Bukur really destroyed all those ships searching for Blood Raider boosters? More imporantly, did he find any? The last question spurred me to action. I brought my Loki around to engage.

November 4 YC 117

It has been a week since I fought Bukur. It was a very close battle and more by luck than skill I barely survived. I blew up Bukur's pod as well to ensure he couldn't interrupt me while I searched his wreck. In it I found only two of the boosters such a heavy price had been paid for. I retreated with them to my secret corner of space. I was sorely aware this wasn't entirely necessary as nobody was left in the system with me. My badly damaged ship was on fire for longer than seemed possible before finally snuffing itself out. So long as I had my drugs I didn't care.

My entire ship crew of over five hundred had died rendering even the most basic of tasks vastly more difficult than normal. This wasn't a problem until the remaining boosters were exhausted. The cataclysmic crushing experienced at the end of the final drug was made all the worse knowing there would be no more. I cocooned myself in my ship for as long as possible before reaching the realisation that I had to find my way back to civilisation. Ordinarily this would be a trivial task but the damage to my ship and lack of crew greatly handicapped me. It took more than a half a day of scanning before I was even able to leave the system I had known for so long as home.

A further day of scanning saw me find my way to a wormhole which my ship sensors indicated led to inhabited space. I sat there for some time wondering what lay beyond. Had the whole of New Eden seen the same event which occurred in the microcosm of my corporation? Would the whole of my universe have been laid to waste? With my ship able to cater for my every biological need would I be destined to wander the empty space lanes alone for all time? The rush as the wormhole fully enveloped my ship did little to calm these thoughts.

I emerged somewhere deep in Amarr space many jumps from the old, familiar regions of space near Dodixie I had once called home. My fears built as I realised the system I had emerged in was empty. There were no other capsuleers there at all. I set route for Dodixie. Somewhere along the twenty plus jumps I must encounter another capsuleer. The real concern was whether they would be hostile as Bukur had been. I was relieved to find the jump gate to the next system was still active. That was a good sign that some civilisation had survived at least. Jumping though I was greeted with a lot of chatter on the local solar system comms channel. What's more, it was normal chatter. No threats; no hostilities; not even any wrecks on my scanners which could indicate capsuleer combat. Within two jumps towards Dodixie my fears of a total breakdown of society had been completely eradicated.

It appears the enhanced effects of the Blood Raider booster were limited to my wormhole and my corp. Nothing will likely explain the occurrences of the past week. Attempts to contact other members of my corporation have been entirely unsuccessful. Several have even left since I found my way to Dodixie. All those years of trust destroyed. What did we do?