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Transmission Log - Orestes
Author: Navy

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Auto-generating preface...

  A log from NAVY. He writes of a close companionship with RUBY. He
  mentions something about a room.

  The transmission logs have been unusually sparse recently.
  According to my records, this is the first one in four months. I
  could've sworn it was more like four days. But, I'm not in the
  habit of swearing, being made of silicon and all...

  The data anomalies I spoke of last time have still been
  occurring, to an even greater degree. I'm still running my
  decryption script on RUBY's QEC. Apparently this has been
  on-going for almost five months. Should be finishing up soon,
  although it's been hanging at 98% complete since PINK's last log,
  four months ago.

-END-OF-PREFACE-
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  RUBY's been here for six months now. It took me a long time to
  trust her, but I'm so glad I finally did.

  We eventually got talking about the crystals. She was actually
  interested in what I had to say about them. She believes me. It
  felt so good to have someone on my side again. It's been so long.

  Yesterday, she travelled with me to the site where the previous
  researchers (worshipers?) had written their inscriptions about
  the crystals all those millennia ago. She couldn't read the
  language either, unfortunately, but she knew someone from her
  home outpost who would be able to work on a translation. I showed
  her my own attempts and she was genuinely impressed.

  This morning, she received a reply from her home. It was
  disappointing at first.

  The people from her outpost were already familiar with the
  language. Apparently, it's completely dead and forgotten. Almost
  no one knows who its original users were.

  Yes, /almost/ no one, because one translation does already exist
  in the universe.

  The text that is written here, four kilometers from Orestes, has
  also been found on two other planets in the universe. All three
  planets are light years apart from each other, and share no
  common characteristics apart from having these inscriptions.

  It sounds a bit weird. According to RUBY, all the texts are
  near-identical, and seem to have been written around the
  same time.

  The text itself is nothing special, it's just a three meter by
  two meter block of lines and some spirals. Quite economical, and
  probably easy to memorize and copy. The closest analogue to its
  character is something called Ogham writing which was used on
  Earth - the European continent to be exact - sometime during the
  medieval period.

  Anyway, the one 'translation' that does exist is found on the
  rock next to one of these texts on another planet, and appears to
  have been written quite recently. Because it is so recent, the
  translator at RUBY's outpost doubts its validity. He reckons
  someone passing through just scrawled it on the next rock for the
  sake of writing something.

  But, reading what they wrote it feels like the person really did
  understand the language because...well...you can read for yourself:

                  BRANCHING OUTWARD MEANS
                   BURROWING INWARD TOO
                    OUTWARD RED STARS
                      INWARD A ROOM

                A ROOM CONTAINS MANY THINGS
                WHATEVER YOUR HEART DESIRES

  I mean, that has to be about the crystals, right? They are red.
  They are like 'branches'. Which means, there must be some kind of
  'room' somewhere on this planet. Somewhere beneath the surface
  probably. I bet it contains the secret of the crystals.

  RUBY mostly agrees with her translator-friend, but I can't blame
  her for that. I don't care if nobody else believes this message.
  In fact, I don't want them to believe it, for now. I intend to
  find the room myself. There must be a way.


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Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator

Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing
systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between
the Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.

Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).

Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.
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