Chapter One: Diagnostic Procedures
“The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” —The Call of Cthulhu, H.P Lovecraft
Mankind had always strived for new information. Among the scientific community – especially those calling themselves astrologists – probes were a big thing. They were a great tool for finding out about the universe at large, for interacting with things they themselves could not interact with. So it came as no surprise when the old probes that had fallen into disuse were superseded by newer models. One such probe, the “Cyclone 2” model, was now being prepped and readied for imminent launch. (Cyclone 1 was the victim of a freak accident involving a paranoid conspiracy theorist, an RPG launcher and laughably lax security. ...It was a prototype anyway.)
The announcement came: “T minus five... four... three... two... one. We have lift-off.”
The control centre had been frantic for a little while – as was often the case when facing into a launch, but now the mood was celebratory. The rocket, carrying the Cyclone 2 probe, had been launched without great mishap, and now they could relax, as all they had to do was monitor it – and wait. So they did, fetching some champagne while they were at it. This was their second, and their successful, attempt, after all.
In the rocket itself, the probe was waiting too. Not that it had any idea it was waiting, as it had no sense of time passing. Or impatience. It was functioning only at its most basic level, self-generating power for its long journey ahead and waiting to be launched from the rocket. Then, it could begin its mission. Soon enough, the probe was jolted awake, in a sense. It received a burst of power that knocked it online – not hugely elegant, but it did its job. The probe was caused to query where it was, what was going on, and to begin to establish its mainframe and internal programming. Not long after it stopped caring where it was, as it hadn't been launched yet. It began to prepare itself, internally and externally, for this coming event, the most important in its lifetime – not that it made distinction.
To describe the probe physically, it resembled a steel orb, in two halves that were linked by a core in the centre. The two halves had metal plating of some kind, split into parts, with rivets and seams visible – though they were, in reality, tightly sealed. The front half was not a complete half, with a round hole in the top from which a lifeless lens stared. It looked like it had a bit of room to move, too. The rear half also featured a hole, though larger, through which a thruster of some sort was visible. There were antenna, four of them, ringing the centre end of the two halves, and on each was three grey rings that resembled more traditional solar panels. The halves were a rather dull steel colour, though they still had that “newly-manufactured” shine. The core within was a deep black, so much so it seemed to absorb light. Though, if it did begin to absorb light, it could change to a blinding white that would reflect light, to avoid overheating, via a thin shield. It did this now, purely for diagnostic purposes.
Lighter, thick lines could be seen running over the core, in an odd pattern. Bright yellow energy would periodically run through these – this was an indicator of its diagnostic state. Yellow meant it was booting up and preparing, green meant it was somehow changing its internal state and wasn't observing or performing its normal functions, blue meant everything was normal and it was functioning properly, orange meant it had a problem of some sort that was hindering its function, and red meant it had a critical problem or was seriously damaged and wouldn't function at all for much longer. Purple meant it was running low on power – not that this was likely to happen, it generated its own power internally, via an advanced fusion reactor dubbed the “Flare” reactor which was extremely efficient and, it had been said, foolproof. That was it really, - not an overly complex design.
The rocket was now almost at its final position, where it would enter high orbit and release the probe. It readied itself for this, changing direction subtly, as did the probe, which was by now almost fully booted. It was simply waiting to enter space. The rocket suddenly reached that magic height, adjusting its thrusters and power in order to enter orbit, and soon it was racing around the earth. It slowed slightly as it approached the correct point, opening the cone at its top, which contained the probe, and suddenly the probe was launched away from the rocket at a fair speed. The cone closed. The rocket would continue to orbit the earth until it was ready to return to earth where it could be salvaged, but the probe continued to fly away from its home in a straight line. One might have liked to think that it would be sad to go, but it was an inanimate probe, nothing more. It had no intelligence past its – admittedly rather excellent – programming, and it was by no means sentient.
It now began to become slightly more animate, as it further prepared for its journey. Now that it was out in space, it could really begin. The first thing it did was to activate its “Manipulator” thruster – so named because it could manipulate the forces it generated to propel the probe in any direction at a moment's notice. The thruster itself, inset into the sphere, began to glow blue with some fierce, internal fire, and suddenly a flame, of sorts, issued from the gap. It was somewhat dispersed, not really resembling a true flame, and it resembled a flame even less when two blue glowing rings appeared, encircling the “flame”, one smaller and closer to the tip of it that the other. These turned a powerful orange as the flame really came into being, with a mixture of whites, reds, yellows, and oranges, and began to propel the probe forward at tremendous speed, close to light speed.
Next, it activated its “Disruptor” particle shield. Using advanced technology, on an atomic scale, it generated and manipulated a shimmering shield of energy which absorbed any energy that it found outside of it (such as kinetic, from a large impact) and used it for one of several things – to reinforce itself; to force the offender away; to loose a huge charge of energy in the form of a bolt that could destroy almost anything and be kilometres long, if enough energy was absorbed; to recharge or add energy to the core, or to power the Manipulator thruster for a short while. It didn't absorb energy within it. It was rather wide, surrounding the tips of the antennae rather than the sphere itself. Speaking of which, the rings on the antennae had become powered, and were now blue, absorbing sunlight, and slowly moving up and down the antenna (and bouncing off each other). The shield didn't usually use energy generated by the Flare reactor, either, preferring to use its own stash. It soon became invisible, to aid visibility for the lens.
Speaking of which, the last thing it did was to activate its “Optics” lens (very fancy, and trademarked, names were common to its most useful parts.) The previously dead lens began to fill with life, as it slowly lit in a reassuring amber colour. At least it wasn't red. The light was white in the centre, bright amber around it with little lines in a circle surrounding the centre, resembling an iris, and layers of darker gold lay below. It was deep black at the edges. The lens suddenly became very lifelike, and eye-like, as it moved – as if to look – to the edges of its vision, and then began to roll around the outside edge slowly, and comically. It returned to the centre, blinking (by closing the centre, white, light) and calmly began to observe everything around it. It may have looked lifelike, but it really was just following its programming, observing and registering everything around it.
Now it was ready. The Manipulator drive threw itself into full throttle, and the probe pretty much vanished for places in the Universe, never before observed. Though it didn't know it, and it wouldn't know it even when it saw them, it was about to witness some very strange things...
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Right, first chapter! Lots of description about the probe, mainly because I was getting an image of it into my mind while writing. I may end up drawing it sometime. Anyway, onto the next one.
