Ahead of the next session, the following side narratives occur, and may be of interest:
Session V [Plot B] - ‘The Node Between Pulsars’
A task group musters in the T’Ong Nebula and follows coordinates extracted from the Archive. It manages to pin down a vast lattice node of the same technology as the Archive, held in place between twin pulsars. USS Tykera, I.K.S. Thorm, RRW Pangaere’elh, RRW Cav’Sanalam, and AKS R’Rel risk entering a dangerous environment in search for knowledge. Close scans resolve the object as a relay angled toward Dovarnis, pulsing on a rhythm that matches the hidden signals found earlier.
Before more can be learned, a cloaked Romulan Tal Shiar force is uncovered in orbit of the Node. The Klingons leads a surprise first strike, buying the task group a narrow win and saving several ships from destruction. In the aftermath, a single pod is recovered by the IKS Thorm, carrying a badly injured Romulan woman who in a dazed state says she is not Tal Shiar…. but Zhat Vash.
Session VI [Plot A] - ‘The Pruned’
Back on Dovarnis, in the Colony Ops control centre, Rynra, Lakara and Kammus examine the ethics of intervening while the Archive is actively pruning stored digital minds; what can be done, what should be done, perhaps nothing at all, perhaps as much as possible. They weigh Federation values, Klingon pragmatism, and even ask what constitutes being alive if all that remains is a digital echo. They consider using the USS Pace to shoulder spillover and question the risk to the colony with this infrastructure buried beneath this world.
As the arguments circle, delayed overnight reports filter in from across the Aurek One; assaults, blackouts and injuries. They decide to see the truth first hand and head for the Medical Centre. When they arrive, things are worse than they imagined. Triage overflows, two bodies lie under sheets, and a young technician shifts from panic to a cold, hollow stare, then lashes out; Lakara closes, pins and disarms them while medics sedate.
Comparing neuro imaging with tricorder traces, Kammus and a neuro-specialist conclude that colonists are being overwritten by implanted engrams; with energy patterns identical to those preserved in the Archive. But it doesn’t feel like a directed attack, rather it is found that the metallic dust from Grid Theta itself has slipped past scrubbers into vents and habs across the colony, and this is the transfer conduit used being the Caretaker. Rynra orders lockdown, closes transit, and institutes colony wide quarantine with rebreathers and dust control to slow the spread while they work the cause.
Session VII [Plot B] - ‘Watching the Watcher’
In the depths of the I.K.S. Thorm’s brig, the captured Romulan gives her name as Velal of the Zhat Vash. Under rough Klingon handling she sketches a starker chain of cause and effect; of how the Tal Shiar uncovered the Archive and how they were digitised and pruned when they tried to wipe it.
Though it seems like ccrazed ramblings, she speaks of machine minds that learn and do not forgive, a logic that will kill to survive. But there are just enough facts in what she says to result in a mix of belief and doubt among those gathered. She desribes how the Node between the pulsars is not only a relay, it is a sentry and a blade; probe it, and it studies you, adapts, then turns on you.
At the cell door, tempers fray. Starfleet presses for restraint and a formal record; The Klingons demand pressure and swift answers; those of the Republic stay more cold, intent on securing custody of a likely war criminal.
The prisoner coughs blood and insists time is already lost, that failing to attack both the Node and the Archive will invite catastrophe, perhaps extinction, by our own curiosity.
After hours of sparring questions, the Klingons authorise transfer of the prisoner to Romulan hands for medical stabilisation under guard. The moment stretches and long range telemetry reports a drift in the Node’s position, a subtle reorientation toward the fleet. Whatever has been set in motion is still moving, watching, drawing closer to them now…
Session VIII [Plot B] - ‘The Minds Within’
As the team returns to Grid Theta, the Archive feels awake, crystalline latticework pulsing in regular waves while a low harmonic thrums. Within, Caretaker‑9 admits the grim balance it has been holding, and that the overwriting of those exposed to metallic dust is its doing. The effect is a desperate consequence of a storage threshold lowered by Tal Shiar sabotage; to preserve the minds it already holds, the construct prunes to fit, then bleeds the overflow into the nearest viable storage medium it can find: the colonists of Dovarnis III.
On the surface, the Aurek One colony reels. Klingon warriors hold a cordon round the Colony Ops Centre as medics triage the wounded; transporter pattern integrity collapses where dust is present, and shuttle launches are suspended under quarantine.
Deep underground within the Archive the team commit to a stopgap measure. With Captain Corelli’s assent, the USS Pace will act as a buffer to relieve capacity pressure and halt further overwriting, at least, for a time. They begin to stage the plan, yet before a link can be established, Caretaker‑9 unilaterally snares the Pace from orbit and drags her down to the valley floor, forcing ship hull and systems into contact with the metallic dust to effect the transfer. Overwriting halts, and the transferance begins, but it remains a temporary fix; only restoring the Archive’s full design capacity at its heart will end the pruning, and the price for that may be higher than anyone is ready to pay.
Session IX [Plot B] - ‘A Burning Judgement’
The ancient structure known as the ‘Node’ edges toward the fleet on a strange rhythm, then blinks into the centre of their formation suddenly. Ship’s sensors blur at the fringes, targeting reticles drift, and across the formation flight control sees millisecond hitches while inertial dampeners hiccup and bridge interfaces tessellate into neat geometric shards. It feels like a slow and methodical attack, or a study that is about to become one; either way, each minute tightens the vice, and if it is allowed to continue the fleet will be picked apart system by system without a shot fired.
A quick council is called between Captains and Commanders. On a secure channel the prisoner Velal is pressed for specifics, what draws the Node, what is its purpose. Her answers are curt: massed signatures entice it, it learns from interactions, the Tal Shiar inadvertently thought it how to destroy, resulting it it obliterating their listening post… and now it seeks to repeat that on them all as it knows they are trying to destroy it first.
With time running out, attitudes harden toward offensive action; yet with the Node already degrading flight control and targeting, and blinking inside the fleet at will, the tactical options are few. One wrong move could see them all carved apart. Reports from Dovarnis keep stacking, possession events and starships ensnared point to the Archive’s influence, so delay is a luxury.
The Klingons press to use the local star as a hammer, and the council shapes a precise lure sunward. The IKS Thorm will be bait for the fleet. The plan is simple to convey, but brutal to execute: to draw the Node into a gravity well and let physics do what their compromised systems can not.
They jump to warp as one, the Node gives chase and they drop out near the blazingly bright ball of another nearby sun; too close by design.
Shields blister and bleed, EPS relays overload, hulls scream, and ship helms try to escape the gravity well as the corona starts to take its toll. Then… the Node flashes in above them, as if for a moment looking down upon them in judgement… but it is not the final arbiter here.
The star’s fury lashes it; its gravitic signature hangs like a weight round its neck, motion bleeding away until its lattice of ancient material catches fire and it falls, fast. For the briefest of moments, it stops moving altogether, as the fleet above withdraws. It convulses, then breaks apart in a cloud of bright shards that are quickly swallowed by the star.
But there is a flash in the moment just before it breaks; a pulse brighter than the sun it’s consumed by. It rips outward at the fleet and stars vanish; consoles fracture into geometric patterns, gravity slips, and the view resolves into an impossible blue sky of data spires. The fleet has been digitised and pulled inside the Archive.
Session X [Plot A] - ‘Descent into Memory’
Back on Dovarnis, with the USS Pace already straining under the burden of thousands of transferred minds, the Caretaker warned that overwriting of Aurek One’s colonists would soon begin again unless its full storage could be restored. The team had little choice but to follow its guidance and delve deeper into the Archive’s hidden chambers.
There, they learned that the system recognised only certain ancient roles: Scientist, Engineer, Custodian, Watcher. Each of them was forced to step into one of these designations in order to interact with the alien machinery. What might have seemed like ceremony quickly proved to be necessity, for the Archive would not respond to them otherwise.
The descent brought them into a vast hall of memory, a dome filled with flickering fragments of lives long gone. It was haunting, even beautiful, but the answers it yielded were troubling. The Caretaker admitted the violent behaviour of overwritten colonists might stem from the type of minds being forced into them… criminals, prisoners, or other dangerous elements once confined within the Archive. For what is a society if not the sum of all of its parts - both good and ill. What had been built to preserve a civilisation now risked loosing its worst upon the living.
With time slipping away, the team pressed on toward the control node, where the glyph key could unlock the full exaquad of storage the Archive is capable of. To succeed, each role would need to act in unison: to contain, to watch, to calibrate, to preserve. Only by working together could they hope to restore balance and spare the colony further loss. Failure would mean the overwriting begins anew… and the Archive’s darker legacy might emerge unchecked.
Session XI [Plot A] - ‘Unlocking Memory’
Deep within the Archive on Dovarnis the away team stood before the Archive’s heart, where three vast orbs revolved with threads of light linking them together. Taking up their assigned roles, each officer and civilian faced an alien interface…. but one that they would discover adapted to their understanding.
By tuning resonance keys, calibrating collapsing data streams, sealing breaches, and watching for intrusions, their first efforts trigger a crisis where members of the missing science team appear, but are possessed by shard-minds not of their own. They force a desperate fight. The team is able to initiate a ‘containment override’ to obliterate the attackers, but at the cost of six lives.
Shaken but resolute, they pressed on. Through harmonic alignment and careful coordination, they discovered that the Archive’s systems were not governed by chronology but resonance, patterns that echoed the three moons of Dovarnis itself. By applying this harmony to the data streams, the team stabilised the cascade just as another tide of hostile shard-minds broke through - this time from the colony itself; hundreds of possessed bent on tearing the team apart…
With the unlocking sequence complete, the Archive roared back to life, its storage restored to full exaquad capacity. The surge ended as suddenly as it began. Possessed colonists collapsed, their shard-minds torn loose and drawn back into the Archive by the Caretaker, leaving bewildered but living people in their place.
Relief swept through the chamber, though it was short-lived. Reports from the surface revealed that not all colonists had been restored. A fraction remained locked in strange behaviour, their minds still chained to something deeper within the Archive. The task was not yet done.
