December 2017 Post

(from “The Archives of the United Nations Quantum Corps”)

“The Battle at Conamara Chaos: Part I”

Q2 Intelligence Briefing (NOFORN)

One of the most consequential and significant battles that UN Quantum Corps and UN Frontier Corps fought against the advance elements of the Old Ones was the Battle at Conamara Chaos.  Here’s an orbital look at the battlefield, with a surface view of the icescape of Europa:

The battle was fought entirely below the ice, with the Frontier Corps ship FCS Trident making her borehole west of one of the surface linea at the point indicated. 

Trident’s mission was simple to state: to locate, engage and, if possible, render harmless the suspected elements of the Old Ones’ advance scouts thought to be present below Europa’s ice.  Long-range decoherence wake analysis from Station P in Mars orbit and Gateway in Earth orbit had determined that a large fluctuating quantum system was present at Europa.  Intelligence analysts determined from multiple sources and from this analysis that the source could only be the long-suspected Keeper, a known reconnaissance formation working to scout the outer solar system in preparation for the arrival of the Old Ones’ mother swarm.  Trident’s mission was to investigate and take direct action to render such a sentinel effectively harmless.

The initial engagement occurred on or around January 2, 2100 (see Johnny Winger and the Golden Horde for details).

Upon detection and a cautious approach, Trident came to a full stop about five hundred meters away.  The crew discussed their options.  Sonar resolution and what visuals they could get indicated the object must be the Keeper system.  It was a large buoyant platform, surmounted by spheres and other structures.  It was floating freely, but something was keeping it stationary in fixed position…perhaps some kind of thrusters.  The most telling evidence came from the expedition’s quantum engineering specialists (CQE’s).  The object was emitting quantum state waves at a very hard-to-detect entanglement level.  “It’s a quantum device,” one of the techs determined.  And even as the sonar resolved the shape and extent of the object, nearly half a kilometer in longest dimension, its shape changed again and again, morphing from one state to another, right before their eyes.

This was going to be a most unusual engagement.

Intelligence from Q2 determined that the Keeper was in fact a portal to the Old Ones, though the crewmembers didn’t know at the time if it could physically transport anything or if it was more like a comm portal.  In time, they would learn that the Keeper could communicate directly with the Old Ones and could transport objects across physical time and space for limited distances and time periods.  It could move things around the Solar System and it could also move small objects through time.  It was at the same time a transmitter, an archive and a kind of ‘library’ of all possible states for a defined period of solar system history, from just after the Sun formed to now.  All these things would be learned later by the task force. 

Colonel John Winger, expedition commander, made the decision.  “The only way we’re going to know for sure what we’re dealing with here is to go out there.  Examine it close up.”

Quantum Corps nanotroopers then donned hypersuits equipped for sub-surface activity, armed their weapons, primed their defensive ANAD swarms and exited Trident.

After-action reports from Conamara Chaos detailed what happened next:

The recon team suited up.  They were all respirocyte-treated, but they still needed pressure and temperature protection, plus personal propulsors, so they wore hypersuits that provided these things.  In time, they exited Trident’s airlock and made their way slowly over toward the Keeper platform.  To help out, Trident moved in a little closer, launched some robotic underwater drones and shone floodlights on as much of the platform as they could reach.

It was a vast complex, a huge platform with structures studding top and bottom surfaces.  There were loose smaller nanobotic swarms and swarm elements floating nearby, forming a loose protective sphere around the platform. The water flow around the platform was turbulent and the recon team had trouble maneuvering in the turbulence.  Plus periodic quantum waves passed by and through them and one such wave had the effect of displacing the entire team in time and space right back aboard the Trident, to the time they had just started suiting up for the dive.

Winger and the others shook off the effects of the quantum displacement and realized, to the consternation of Frontier Corps Captain Stella and the rest of the Trident crew, what had just happened.

Winger realized that dealing with this Keeper system and disabling or destroying it were not going to be easy.  Winger summarized the conundrum for Stella and the crew at an impromptu briefing:

“How do we fight an object that can displace us to just about anywhere in time and space as soon as we approach it?”

It was nanotrooper Turbo Fatah that offered evidence that the entire Keeper system was nothing but a giant swarm, collected together to form a transmitting/displacement lens and an archive of quantum states. 

The only sure way to fight a swarm was with another swarm.  Winger and his troopers got to work to devise a tactical plan to achieve their mission.

Additional intelligence from our sources will be provided in the next briefing posted to this platform in the second half of December, as it becomes available.  Monitor all comm channels for updates.

See you in mid-December.

Phil B.