To Boldly Go: the Artifact

Originally published June 2, 2014

The FSV Columbia, the exploration ship from my Fate game To Boldly Go, has encountered many strange worlds in its travels. The strangest has been the world of the Artifact. This alien world is the first encountered with signs of intelligence not derived from Earth. It's secrets remain unknown. For now...

On the Surface

The Artifact rests on the fifth world circling an aged G1V class star. Near the end of its span on the main sequence, this 8.1 billion year old star should have irradiated and cooked the world long ago. But somehow, the world maintains a stable climate with an oxygen rich atmosphere. It might be considered a normal garden world except for several things:

• Over the eons, the native plant life has gone nearly extinct on the surface due to bursts of radiation from the planet's star. Yet oxygen and ozone levels remain high, even thicker than expected.
• Though ample evidence of vast oceans can be found on the surface, only a small salty sea remains. Seismic scans of the planet reveal vast bodies of water sequestered in massive subterranean grottos.
• Combined with the plains of reflective bare rock, the planet's albedo is raised even higher due to a planet wide cloud of “fog”, extending to the upper atmosphere. The cloud appears to be composed of complex carbon molecules.

On closer examination the only source of this abnormal supply of oxygen and ozone is this mist, extending from the upper atmosphere down to the surface.

Scans of the surface also reveal a “settlement” at a high latitude near the last sea. Made up of spires of artificially constructed stones, this "city" features strange floating metal spheres and the Artifact: a towering egg-shaped device that repels any attempt to get close to it.

Elsewhere

The rest of the system consists of dead rocks and icy gas giants. Of the four inward from the Artifact, most are hot empty stones. The fourth planet shows some signs having been colonized at one point with traces of an atmosphere and unusual concentrations of rare metals on its surface.

A barren asteroid belt separates the world of the Artifact from the rest of the system. Consisting of broken chucks of worthless stone, all valuable volatiles and minerals have been mined out long ago.

Five gas giants complete the solar system. Their numerous moons show similar signs of mining activity.

Forgotten Tools of a Dead World

The Fog

The mist that covers the world is made up of billions of billions of tiny machines capable to building or destroying any material at the molecular level. Capable of self replication, they have maintained this world for billions of years.

• High Concept: Assembler and Disassembler Cloud
• Trouble: Mist of Machines
• Other Aspects: Ubiquitous Fog
• Skills: Devour +5, Assemble +7, Drift +3
• Stunts: Synthetic Life: the fog can use Assembly to build creatures, even duplicates of those it has killed, as an overcome challenge. Creations are under no compunction to do anything for the fog. Creations can be mind blank clones, combinations of species, or copies at different stages of their life cycles.

The Artifact

Hovering in the central plaza, this vast egg-shaped monolith absorbs all light and energy projected at it. Pitch black, all physical objects approaching it are twisted aside by a powerful gravitational field.

Older than the city, older than the ruins that lie beneath it buried under billions of years of rock, the Artifact persists. Powered by the force of a captured black hole and seemingly the control system for the entire planet, it waits.

• High Concept: Eons Ancient and Enduring
• Trouble: Forgotten Purpose
• Other Aspects: Alien and Inscrutable, Bends the Universe Around It
• Skills: Inscrutable (hide purpose and mislead) +7, Toughness (resist all efforts to destroy it) +7, Environmental Defenses (attack powers) +5

Secrets of the Vestiges of an Alien Civilization

This is the true history of the Artifact.

Roughly 3 billion years ago, an intelligent race arose on the world of the Artifact. They progressed from hunting and gathering to farming to an industrial revolution. They harnessed the atom and survived the consequences. Despite stumbles along the way, ever greater technology led to increased prosperity. The solar system was explored. The asteroid belt was mined, removing the limitations of finite resources. They conquered gravity and the power of fusion. Limitless energy was theirs. They sent exploration ships across the galaxy.

But found nothing to interest them, only barren worlds and a few primitive forms of life.

Their culture turned inward. Free of material needs, their society focused on skill and art. Centuries passed as their scientists conquered death and their inventors built a realm of virtual reality that removed the last of their restrictions.

Many were tempted by this virtual realm.

Society stratified between those who refused to use technology that would change what they were, those who became electrons and dwelled in a dream world, and those who lived the lives of seeming gods the crystalline cities.

Millenia passed.

Then came the first Cataclysm. The old world was wiped out by a series of supervolcano eruptions. Many in the dream world perished, erased as the system crashed. Those outside the cities fared well initially but died off as years passed with no sun. The survivors from the cities rebuilt better than before.

They secured a permanent power source, at least one that would last for tens of billions of years. They filled the skies with nanomachines to fulfill their every whim. They tied their systems together with redundancies and shielded the core of the system in the very fabric of space-time.

Thousands of years passed. Even godhood has its limits. Some retreated into the planetary computer system, others gave up the cities to satisfy their needs using the eternal fog.

They were immortal. That was their downfall.

After tens of millenia their minds could hold only so much, catalogue so much knowledge. Some sacrificed history for the present. Others chose to finally pass on. Those who stayed in the world slowly vanished as thousands of years turned to millions, picked off by ennui or disaster.

Those who had become virtual intelligence succumbed to similar issues as well as the slow decline cognition due to accumulated experiences.

In the end a collision with a small planetoid disrupted the systems for a few hundred thousand years. Though the system recovered, the survivors decided to pass on rather than linger in their mausoleum of a world.

The system continued. Maintaining the environment. Limiting radiation damage.

Millions of years became billions. The star aged and grew brighter. The planetary core cooled and hardened. The system compensated, raising the albedo by hiding the oceans. It rebuilt the city it was placed in again and again, though imperfectly and empty.

And waited for orders.