Don't know how long we have actually been in this place, this... space, if that is even what it is. The ship based estimates of elapsed time depend on which module you are in, but it is between a month on the Command Module, and three weeks here in the Lounge. Not much, but noticeable as it adds up.
This space is not like anything else before, and the readings are, as I said in my previous entry, weird. With the combined efforts from all four of the AI's, my companions, and I, we have managed to get the modules within visual range of each other. That was no small task, but what it took to do it, suggests an answer as to where we are. An answer I don't like the implications of. At least the difference in time between the modules is now only a few seconds a week.
The only communication we had was via the ET/EC comm unit in each module. During the rebuild I did of the Viteză Furie, I gave into my instinct to mirror every system I could. I wasn't able to include every drive system, weapon, shield, etc... but I was able to include most. Only the Engineering section has the needed power to run some of them. Like that monster shield that I had set up to protect my base on that Void System. Don't even remember what I called it at this point. One of those drive systems I installed allows FTL travel by creating a bubble of real space around the ship. That bubble then acts as a friction-less surface, and allows a ship to exceed light speed in real space, as far as an outside observer is concerned, even though the ship is functionally motionless in relation to its own personal bubble of space. This drive system shows that space itself a thing that can be manipulated, moved, shaped, created, and formed. Such a revelation gives even more credence to CT's writings on the nature of space, and the wider cosmos in general. It adds to the budding hypothesis I have about what this new space we find ourselves in, is.
We discovered that this drive was active and maintaining a bubble of space around each module. That bubble of normal space, to us, protecting each module from this space we find ourselves in. It seems to have been some kind of strange fail-safe that isn't listed in the manual. Then again, I never had a manual for this drive, or how it was actually used. It was something I picked up from one of the wrecks on the Speaker, and that particular data wasn't included. It had potential, so I picked it up, made copies, and installed them. After I showed my friends, they showed me that they had something similar, and gave me some information on how the drive worked. That allowed me to fix some issues with it, and tune it better. I had some settings wrong. I tested the drive before the updates, and it was FAST!!! After the updates. It got really fast. Fast enough to cross the distances between universes in days or weeks.
We could detect those bubbles of space created by the drive as very subtle, almost sonar like, reflections or echos in the space around us. It was very subtle, and it took the AI's days to do the calculations. Once we had an idea of where the other modules were, we all moved carefully towards each other. It took two weeks to do it, ship time on the Lounge, but now we can actually see each other. The spacial bubbles each drive system creates is now butted against the bubble from the others. We can see the substance of this other space slide around and between us.
I have been studying it, while the AIs do calculations that should allow the merger of the fields for all four modules, like the merging of soap bubbles. We could then, in such a larger bubble, dock the modules and make the Viteză Furie whole again. The way it moves, shifts, and what I detect from it doesn't make sense on the surface. I get readings that reflect the presence of things, while simultaneously getting readings of the opposite thing, and nothing at all. That provided a bit of a logical challenge to me, and so I dove into the treasure trove of data I collected from the wrecks at the Speaker, CTs writings, what I gleaned from my friends, and from the Ull Malk′et.
What I found in that data, after days of reading and studying, running simulations, and running equations out to their inevitable conclusion was something I did not like. So I ran things again, and again. I cannot deny that what I found is likely the correct result, though I have a long term reading set in progress that will put a final answer to the question. What I believe now, is that we are in what some call The Between. Others call it Chaos, The Underpinning, and one source called it That which Lies Beneath All. It is supposed to be a madness inducing thing to look out into it, as it will supposedly look back at you. I suppose it has, looked back at me. Madness has not however come, but perhaps that is because of my other experiences up to this point.
What it all boils down to is a probability field. A region where everything possible, and its anti-point, all exist at the same time, canceling each other out. That is why the readings are so weird. What we see beyond our discrete bubbles of space, is the constant ebb and flow of that interaction. There are waves out there, and we seem them pass by, even riding a few of them. It matches CTs writings, as well as data I found from a dozen other species crashed on the Speaker. That's what the final tests are for. The results will tell me, with as much certainty as one can have when embedded in a probability field, if that is in fact where we are.
That however worries me, because that means that out there are universes. Not just collections of galaxies, but the wider cosmos I have been traveling up to this point. More to the point, wider cosmos that are not ours, because if we are in The Between, then out there is ours, and others. Our cosmos being one of many, living within the skin of a bubble of non-zero sum probability. I don't even know what to call these them. CT called them reality bubbles, another source in the data called them Probability bubbles. It was all just hypothetical postulations in the data, theories that none of them had been able to prove. Yet, the conditions we find ourselves in, the way we were able to detect the other modules, some of the other things I detect. Strange reflections, echos out in the inky, flowing fog of this place. It all matches up, and that itself suggests the answer.
What if we run into one of those, fall into it, and it is not like ours? What if it is so different, it is like what happened to that probe I sent through the anomaly? Even if it is like ours, how will we tell if it is in fact, really, ours? There are some suggestions in all that data, but nothing helpful. At least not helpful until we find ourselves in such a cosmos. They, and I don't mean CT in this case, as CT never delved into such things in the writings I have. It was just mentioned in passing as an offshoot of their Arc Space and Arc Drive equations. Something they might explore later on. No way to know if CT ever did. The theories that do go into discussions of The Between, and Reality Bubbles, are from from one of the data stores I recovered from a wreck on the Speaker. It suggests that, based on an expansion of CTs equations with the information from this source, that the Arc Drive creates a micro-fissure in space, just like the fissures that create universes. Only it is a targeted fissure.
It is possible that, as we had just come out of Arc Space, with our velocity, and running into the spacial rupture from the destroyed Speaker construct; that we might actually pull that fissure behind us, as it is slowly sealing itself. The velocity, plus the Arc Space fissure, plus the construct rupture, conspired to blast us out of our universe, our bubble of probability and into The Between. Were it not for the space drive kicking in and creating the spacial bubbles around each module, we would have been quickly consumed by the probability field. The modules, along with my companions and I, rendered into probability waves. Lost forever as if having never existed.
That is the implication of the equations and data up to this point. The tests I am running, the long period reading sets, will put a final pin in that. The question becomes several fold at that point.
First. Can we merge the spacial bubbles safely. After that and we dock the modules back into a single ship. How do we get out of The Between, and back into a cosmos, a Probability bubble, and one that is compatible with us and the systems of the ship? The AI's suggest it will be weeks before they can answer the first question, and my reading sets will be done well before then. I also hope that the readings will give an indication of any nearby bubbles, and maybe even what their properties are. A lot of unknowable's.
>>>>>> Archivist Note <<<<<< >>>>>> Archivist: Kevin Al'rea Phoenix <<<<<<
The Log Entries up to this point have been retrieved from an Entangled Communications unit, that was itself retrieved from a historically Puritian territory. The location it was retrieved from has been suggested, based on Puritian expansion mapping, to have been the source Arc Event, source Universe, of the Puritians. We are unable to say if the recorder of these entries was a member of the original Puritian species. They have become an amalgam species as they have expanded. The language and other data we have collected do suggest it is possible that they were, but that cannot be definitively determined.
We are unable to confirm if the individual and their companions are still alive out there in The Between, or in the multiverse somewhere. This entry did however come in after nearly a quarter million years of silence, and it came in at a much higher data rate than any previous entry. The data streams have also been coming in at a much higher data rate, which suggests that they may still be alive. That wherever they are is compatible, and close enough that the Entangled Communications unit was able to re-establish the link. It is know from testing that ET/EC communications can traverse between PWIC bubbles if they are close enough, and of a similar equation base. Only time will tell. All data received is being cataloged and added to the Archive per protocol. Key points, such as the information on the Speaker Construct, the Ull Malk′et, the Log Entry writers friends, and the Arc Event map the Construct provides access to, is being organized and passed to the Black Fleet High Commander, and Black Phoenix Industries CEO for review.
>>End Archivist Entry<<