Aegis VII

**Aegis VII** was a remote planet of key importance, housing the man-made Red Marker, Marker 3A, as well as a huge Monster called the Hive Mind.

## Location

The seventh planet of the Cygnus system and like-named cluster, Aegis VII is located an unknown distance from Earth; although it has been described to be "several million light years from home" by a surveyor. Aegis VII has an unusually large quantity of precious metals residing under its planetary crust. It was also the resting place of the Red Marker.

## Description

Aegis VII appeared to be a rocky planet, similar to Earth, with a molten core. The planet had an orange-tinted sky with an atmosphere that didn't appear to be too thick. Stars and the sparse ring of rocks which surrounded the planet were visible even during the day. The terrain was mountainous and barren. Ravines and caves were common across the surface as well as smooth barren plains requiring a crawler or a shuttle to be traversed quickly.

Because the planet's atmosphere was so thin, wearing an engineer RIG was advised whilst exposed to the surface conditions. Surface weather consisted of high winds and dust storms, making prolonged periods of outside work inadvisable without sufficient protection. However, the atmosphere did contain significant levels of oxygen for a human to breathe.

After Abdullah returned Marker 3A to its pedestal on the planet's surface, it activated an EMP strike. This disabled the USG Ishimura's gravity tethers which had been suspending a gigantic chunk of rock and earth excavated from the planet. This then fell from low-orbit which caused a massive planetary collision and left the planet seismically unstable. The molten core of the planet rose up to the surface which created large lakes and rivers of magma covering the surface. With the gravity field of the planet weakened due to this massive collision, it exploded into millions of chunks of debris and asteroids due to a total collapse of the planet's structure.

## History

### First Aegis VII Incident

After the Black Marker was successfully reverse-engineered by the Sovereign Colonies, one copy Marker 3A, was relocated to Aegis VII; where the research team continued to attempt to decipher the symbols on its surface.Template:Fact

A number of experiments based on the finally deciphered symbols resulted in the synthesis of an alien microbial life-form composed of recombinant DNA. Which lead to subsequent horrific events caused by its release into the wild. The system was erased, abandoned, and the Aegis Cluster marked off limits to all space traffic as a prohibited zone by General of the Army Ambrose Caiden of the Sovereign Colonies Council.

### Second Aegis VII Incident

The planet eventually became home to an illegal mining facility set up by the Concordance Extraction Corporation. Before the discovery of the Red Marker, the colonists had been experiencing insomnia and uneasiness. At the time of the *Ishimura*’s arrival before the commencement of the planet-cracking, the Red Marker had been found. Many Unitologists believed this to be the Marker from their spiritual texts and desired it be moved to the colony. After its removal, many colonists began experiencing hallucinations, dementia, heightened aggression, and other psychological disturbances. Both the suicide and murder rates on the colony skyrocketed in the days following the Marker's unearthing.

Upon hearing of this "Marker", Captain Daichi Sawamura ordered it taken aboard the *Ishimura*, apparently following orders from the Church of Unitology. P.C.S.I. Security Chief Asuna objected, and Ms. Tohru Honda questioned its nature. Some strange organic matter was discovered growing in the colony soon after the monolith discovery. A week later after the planet crack, the colony experienced a blackout and all radio contact was cut off. Soon after the colonists began going insane, causing panic, murder, suicide, mutilation, and finally a Necromorph outbreak. This prompted the surviving colonists to flee Aegis VII via shuttles from the shuttle bay to the safety of the *Ishimura*. An overloaded passenger shuttle crashed into the bay, destroying all the remaining shuttles with it. The survivors were stranded on the planet and more desperate to push upward for the *Ishimura*.

Later Abdullah went down to Aegis VII to return the Red Marker, believing that it would stop the Necromorph threat from spreading further. Abdullah successfully returned it to the pedestal, pacifying the Hive Mind but disrupting the gravity tethers holding a large portion of Aegis VII several miles above the surface, threatening to destroy the colony. Ritsu Tainaka stole the alien artefact in order to return it to the Earth Defense Force but the Hive Mind crushed her before she could get it back to her ship. Abdullah defeated the Hive Mind and left the planet on his ship just before the extracted rock fell on the surface.

### Final destruction

Aegis VII was severely devastated from the impact—in which Abdullah was publicly recognized for being responsible for the destruction—with the entire planet becoming unstable, much of its surface flowing with magma and falling apart. The USG *O'Bannon* visited the planet to investigate and recover remnants of the Marker 3A. Gravity field generators were deployed onto Aegis VII from the *O'Bannon* to stabilize the planet. Circumstances after recovering a fragment of the Red Marker caused *O'Bannon* crew member Hotaru Tomoe to destroy one of the generators, subsequently causing Aegis VII to explode.

The following explosion heavily damaged the *O'Bannon*, killing several crew members. Because of the recovered Marker shard, it launched yet another Necromorph outbreak similar to the one on the *Ishimura*, but it came to an end as the shard was thrown into the ship's reactor core, ending the nightmare for good. Blame for damage to the USG *Ishimura* was placed on Setsuna Meiou, Chief Medical Officer of the USG *O'Bannon*.

## Notes

1. ↑ *Dead Space: Eternal* identifies Aegis VII as being in the *Cygnus System*; however, it is referred to as the *Aegis System* by other sources.
2. ↑ A text log located on the Mining Deck states that normally the quantity of precious minerals would be 35%, but the valuable mineral concentration of Aegis VII`s is 65%.

1. ↑ Dead Space Remastered: Chapter 7: Into The Void: Mining Timeline