Diogenes IV Research Station

“Of course it is dangerous here, but what we seek to prove is beyond such petty concerns. Even if we die, we will be immortal!”
–Magos Kellix Altar Oll, veteran researcher
One of many Adeptus Mechanicus installations scattered across the sector operated by
the Lords of Mars. Tenuously (and dangerously) anchored in the
center of a pulsar cluster on the rimward border in the Drusus Marches, its thousands
of servitor-cogitators gather and digest data on this mysterious
constellation. It receives little notice and few inquisitive visitors,
which perfectly suits those running the station.
For the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, there are few, if
any, missions more worthy than the pursuit of knowledge. Within
the Calixis Sector, this goal has launched endless Explorator fleets
and Quaestor Expeditions in search of ancient technologies,
remnants of STC systems, lost forge worlds, and other relics of
days when science ruled Mankind. Though the Lathes treasure
such vestiges as reminders of when Mars was truly ascendant,
they also realise that there is still more knowledge to be found,
some discoveries made long ago but since forgotten, others
perhaps even new to humanity. Only through investigation
and experimentation can such information be gleaned and
understood, and thus from the Lathes sprout thousands of
thousands of stations into the Sector. Some remain in the Lathes,
the better to understand and monitor the peculiarities of their
own system. Many went to inhabited planets and forge worlds,
others attached themselves to long-duration voidships, but a
majority were independent stations, isolated orbitals or detached
laboratoria designed to operate on their own in the void. Into
the dark they went, often not to be heard from for centuries---if
ever---again. Diogenes IV is one such station, a tiny mote amidst
a dazzling but deadly arrangement of pulsars.
As the name suggests, Diogenes is the fourth of this station
pattern to be established in the Calixis Sector. Hundreds more
also exist, as the structure is simple to manufacture and designed
to support a wide variety of experimental research. Each is an
angular affair, covered with docking ports, sensoria spikes, and
other devices as needed for their research. This particular station
was launched only a few hundred years after the establishment of
the Lathes, and is located in a barely stable area of space near the
rimward border. Surrounding it are several pulsars, each on its own
worthy of study, but when grouped in such an improbable cluster
they make for an irresistible attraction for closer examination.
==A Precarious Perch==
Diogenes IV’s position is relatively safe, one of the few areas
within the boundaries of the cluster where no one body
overpowers the rest. While it makes for a somewhat stable anchor,
it is a gravity hill, where even the slightest of disturbances might
send it spiraling towards one of the powerful nearby stars.
This also means that travel to and from the station is extremely
challenging, rivalling some of the fell passages through the
Lathes System. Often ships hover on the outskirts of the area for
long periods after emerging from the Warp, carefully plotting
their path across the gravity-confluences and Materium eddies
before progressing inwards. It is not uncommon for vessels to
limp into the station leaving trails of torn components in their
wake, evidence of too close encounters to gravity shearing points.
Some of the Tech-Priests aboard the station are convinced there
are other bodies orbiting the area that exacerbate the cluster’s
difficulty, undetected either through the overpowering energies
of the pulsars or somehow otherwise illusive to the many arrays
and sensoria aboard. Such speculation might explain some of the
more destructive passages ships have faced.
At times, the confluences become so intense that no travel is
possible, and any on the station must remain until the gravity
tides subside. Those with docked ships sometimes wait out
such storms aboard their own cabins, but few vessels have the
shielding to protect against such devastating phenomena, and
most are forced to berth inside the facility. The station itself
is not conducive to waiting out the events, with many areas
barely lit and covered with pitfalls or fallen wiring. There
are few accommodations within Diogenes IV, and those are
almost all designed for the comforts of Tech-Priests. For
these reasons and more, there are few visitors to the station,
few inquiries as to its progress, and few notices of even its
existence. For those engaged in their own privative research
within, this is an ideal state of affairs.
==Centuries of Darknes==
Diogenes IV has remained in isolation for many centuries,
weathering the gravity storms and other dangers of the cluster.
Ancient Tech-Priests scuttle about the station, guiding their
data-gathering devices and conducting esoteric experiments
unfathomable even to others of the Mechanicum. Thousands
of servitors exist in vast linkages to cogitator banks, their
brains permanently wired into the mechanisms to aid in the
processing and digestion of the constant data bombardment
from hundreds of sensoria vanes lining the exterior. Hundreds
more roam the hallways on mysterious errands for their
masters. Much of the station is as dark as its surroundings,
and passageways are littered with detritus and broken glow-globes
from years of neglect. Entire compartments have fallen
into disrepair, with little effort at restoration as attention
towards research is more paramount.
It is in the darkest areas, though, that the most dangerous
experiments are undertaken. Uncounted decades of solitude
has led to a disregard for safety protocols or other niceties,
and only results are of consequence. Minds already focused to
an inhuman degree are warped further still in this reclusion,
and the Tech-Priests attain a state beyond mere madness. One
sect is certain that the pulsars are causing extreme stress-lines
in the local Empyrean boundaries, and are determined to find
a way to force the stars to synchronize their pulsations so
as to create a vast entryway into the Warp such that vessels
could enter without the need for actual Warp drives. That
it might allow hordes of Daemons to enter realspace is of
little concern, but so far their stellar oscillator arrays have
proved fruitless. Another is certain that they can redirect the
magnetic fields of the pulsars to gain entrance to another
spatial region, and thus mimic the methods certain xenos
races use to travel. The Lost Talon faction are devoted to
studying a relic dating from before the Sector was founded,
which seems to resonate in time with the pulsars and perhaps
even guides their vibrational rates. Groups of unmonitored
Magos Ætheric constantly tempt the Warp with their fell
experiments. A small sect has even come to worship the
pulsars as manifestations of the Omnissiah, and seek to reignite
them through invert-matter explosions. Diogenes IV
hosts many such as these in its holds, the darkness of isolation
breeding darkness of thought and deed, all in the name of the
Omnissiah. As more years pass, it is certain that one will erupt
beyond the cluster to threaten the rest of the Sector.
Category:Drusus Marches
Category:Space Stations
Category:Adeptus Mechanicus
Category:Calixis Sector