Episode 3

As the people of Ortus begin their first interstellar journeys, we join Commander Shen Kuo and his intrepid crew in their mission to chart the Verse in the name of mankind.

## Opening Interlude

*CSV Tesla* *completes its jump through the wormhole into the Rammas system with minimal difficulty. Engineer Frieda Rieter faints, but that seems to be simply due to stress rather than the effects of the wormhole itself. Royland Drackovich, the head of security, backs this up with personal his experience from having known Frieda for most of her life, having sheltered her and her family in his home in the aftermath of the Frostpeak Riots.*

*The sensor officer reports in and at first, he thinks the wormhole must have messed with the sensors somehow, as, in his own estimation, what he's seeing can't possibly be true. What he's seeing is, to put it simply, home. One of the planets in the Rammas system has an environment nearly identical to Ortus.*

## Leaving the Cradle

Shen Kuo records a series of log entries detailing *Tesla's* exploration of the systems near Aasha. They begin with Rammas II, the Antarctic world similar to Ortus that scans had picked up on the way into the system. However, when the overexcited crew deploys a team in their pair of landers to the surface, they discover to their horror that in spite of a similar climate, the surface of the planet turns out to be a nightmarish ecosystem dominated by gigantic pack-hunting arachnid top predators, similar in shape to spiders, but almost the size of an Ortus frost bison. Thanks to the quick reactions of Royland Drakovitch, the spiders don't wipe out the entire landing team, but the team returns to orbit short four members and with a considerable dent in their morale. They all tacitly agree to be more careful in future surveys. It seems for the moment that their universe is a hostile place. This is the only place they've found so far that could be considered habitable, and it's just another name to add to their list of off-limit worlds.

*Tesla* completes its survey of the Rammas system and returns to Aasha through another wormhole, which they request via a miniaturized wormhole communicator.

After a brief stopover at Aasha Wormhole Station, *Tesla* receives orders to travel to another system, Scorom, an L-class star similar to Aasha, which has successfully had a preliminary sensor sweep run on it from Ortus and has many more astral bodies orbiting it than Rammas does - 7 planets, according to those initial scans. As soon as *Tesla* exits the wormhole, it discovers that Scorum III is another Antarctic world, bringing the count of known worlds of that class up to 3.

*Tesla* makes a beeline for Scorum III, but the crew resolves to be prepared for the worst this time, spending their entire month-long trek across the Scorum system improving their equipment, and running military drills and simulations under the guidance of Royland Drackovich.

When they arrive at Scorom III, though, things go smoothly. No swarms of vicious wildlife attack their landing sites, and though a few parts of the planet turn out to be hostile, the landing team takes no casualties during their survey efforts. They also discover the pre-sapient species dubbed the Kithri, mushroom creatures similar in intelligence to a small human child or a great ape from Earth, living in equatorial regions of the planet. The Kithri are just coming out of hibernation when the *Tesla* is preparing to leave. They take several Kithri corpses they find on the surface on board for study, but they decide not to take any live ones for further invasive study in light of their pre-sapient status. They leave behind several unmanned research posts at local watering holes for a long-term study of the Kithri, and move on, having finally discovered another planet that holds promise as a future habitat for humanity.

Meanwhile, back on Ortus, human interest in the stars is in full swing. A vote is taken to name the first creature to be born in space in human history - a puppy born to the dog of Chancellor Tesar's niece on board the F-29 mining station. Tesar, in his excitement, puts the naming of the animal to a vote, further increasing public engagement with the Expanse project and improving his own public image. By public demand, the puppy is named Ceasar.

Scorom IV, a toxic world, is surveyed and discovered to have ruined structures on its surface almost identical to those found on Nexon back home in the Aasha system. Exercising their well-earned caution, the crew of *Tesla* chooses not to investigate until they're better prepared; engineer Frieda Rieter and the chemistry team begin working on solutions that will allow them to explore both sets of ruins.

After a brief bit of errand-running, *Tesla* returns to Scorom IV and sends down specialized probes to the surface coated in a substance resistant to the fumes present on the planet that would usually eat through the aluminium, steel and ceramic that made up their airframes. Once the coating is proven, it is applied to the team's exosuits and they go down to the ruins to run an in-depth archeological dig.

The ruins turn out to be a subspace beacon emitting waveforms uncannily similar to human brainwaves. The team has the feeling of being inside the brain of something made from metal and stone, and while the broadcasted message is unintelligible to the research team, the existence of the beacon suggests the possibility of psionics by broadcasting thoughts through subspace by some as-yet-unknown method. Although there are huge mineral veins beneath the gigantic pylons that make up the beacon, the team marks off the area as off-limits to mining operations and sends their data back to the Science Council as a possible future location for a research base.

A follow-up exploration mission to Nexon yields exactly the same results. Since Nexon is within the Aasha system, and thus within easy reach, the Science Council immediately sets up a research outpost to study the Nexon psionic beacon. It's suggested that these two locations may be part of the same communications network.

After another stopover at Ortus, *Tesla* sets course for the Clue system, a binary star with a third massive object orbiting it. The third object turns out to be a Y-class brown dwarf, and above it is a strange energetic anomaly the crew of Tesla dub the void cloud, which seems to be somehow alive and aware. Shen Kuo orders that a course be laid in on an intercept trajectory with the void cloud to get a closer look, but then things get out of hand.

### Notable Surveyed Objects

Rammas II (later called Minerva) - Arachnophobia, Single Biome; Antarctic world.

Rammas - Anomaly detected; low orbit massive object; ignored for now; F-class star.

Rammas I - No notable features; gas giant.

Scorom III (later called Curacao) - Anomaly detected and investigated; pre-sapients (Kithri); Antarctic world.

Scorom - Anomaly detected and investigated; ceramic container; special project issued and ignored; L-class star.

Scorom IV - Anomaly detected and investigated; psionic beacon; poor-quality minerals; toxic world.

Scorom II - Periodic meteor strikes; barren world.

Nexon - Follow-up on previously detected anomaly (buildings on surface); psionic beacon.

## Middle Interlude - Mutiny at Clue IX

Tesla's *head of security, Royland Drakovitch, objects strongly to Kuo's order to approach the void cloud, stating that it is an unknown danger to the ship and its crew, and that its energy signature alone is enough to make it dangerous to get too close to. Kuo tries to have the helmsman set course for the cloud anyway, but the helmsman informs him that Drakovitch's security team are on the bridge, have retrieved their rifles from the ship's armory, and are telling him to step away from the controls.*

*Kuo accuses Drakovitch of treachery, and threatens him by saying that Shu Lin will hunt him down and haul him back to Ortus. Drakovitch is unimpressed, tells Kuo that he's only doing his job, which is to protect* CSVTesla*, not to follow Kuo's orders. He then tells Kuo that he is relieved of command, and Kuo reluctantly steps down without Drakovitch having to use force.*

*Drakovitch confines the commander to his quarters and instructs the security team to ensure he has everything he needs, then sends a message to the rest of the crew telling them what's going on and that Tesla will be immediately returning to Ortus with Drakovitch himself locked in the brig to await the Council's verdict on his actions.*

## Leaving the Cradle, part 2

Shen Kuo's logs continue. He still disagrees with Drakovitch's judgement, but is resigned to its outcome. Drakovitch returns to Ortus, just as he said he would, and the Science Council holds a trial for them on Ortus Spaceport. Ishii and Tesar both attend the trial. Tesar wants to throw both men in prison immediately, while Ishii wants to offer them more merciful treatment (though given the two politicians' relationship and history together, this is probably no more than a good cop, bad cop routine) and they make a show of arguing for a while before coming to the "compromise" that the whole incident will be covered up, Drakovitch will be removed from his post and replaced by a new security chief, and Kuo's entire crew will be sworn to secrecy on pain of imprisonment.

CSV *Prosperity*, the first council colony ship, sets out from Ortus towards the Scorom system to establish a colony on Scorom III, now dubbed Curacao. The ship lands on the surface and is disassembled, its modules being repurposed and reorganized into the first human city off of Ortus, which will become the administration center and capital of the new colony, marking humanity's transition into an interplanetary species.

*Tesla* returns to the Rammas system to do follow-up research on the massive object in a low orbit of its star. It turns out to be an abandoned research station. The crew of *Tesla* haul the station up into a higher orbit and flag it as an object of interest for Council science teams, who take an interest in the advanced construction methods used in the station's frame and systems.

Melanie Giroud is recruited and put in command of the science ship CSV *Outlier*.

*Tesla* goes to the coordinates of a supposed black hole, and confirm that it does, indeed, exist, and it is dubbed Demon's Maw by the crew. Frieda Ryter proves her mettle by keeping the ship running in spite of the extreme tidal forces acting on it as it surveys the black hole.

*Tesla* returns to discover an increase in Task Force Manticore's strength in their absence, up from a single Akula-class corvette up to a constellation of seven of them, still under the command of Shu Lin, operating as law enforcement to counter recent reports of piracy and hijackings of civilian ships making the journey between Ortus and Curacao, and to other locations within the Aasha system. Shu Lin successfully countered the first of these attacks using only her single ship, CSV *Spitfire,* but in the aftermath of the attack she had been assigned more resources to help keep the spacelanes safe.

Six years after CSV *Tesla* made the first wormhole jump, Shen Kuo reflects on humanity's recent accomplishments and on his crew's own experiences that turned them from "naive, bright eyed idealists" into their current, grizzled, experienced selves. They've managed to hold onto their idealism, at least. He comments that they're no longer alone out here. Almost a hundred other OCN vessels ply the stars in search of profit, glory or wonders to discover. He has been sending his log entries home, and they are used as teaching resources at the Academy Astralis back on Ortus Spaceport. He ends his log entry by addressing the students directly, saying that he hopes he's been helpful to them, offering them a message of hope for their future within the OCN, and hoping that he might meet some of them one day in his travels.

### Notable Surveyed Objects

Rammas - Follow-up on previously detected anomaly (object in orbit); abandoned science station; disassembled for engineering research.

Demon's Maw - Possible future site for high-stress testing of engineered systems and materials; black hole.

Helam - No notable features; class S star.

Helam I - Iron Planet; barren world.

Helam Ia - Endless Forest, Strong Volcanism; hothouse world.

Helam VII - Periodic meteor showers, unusual formations; frozen world.

Helam IV - Terraforming candidate, flat terrain, rich mineral veins; frozen world.

Helam II - Strong magnetic field, periodic meteor showers; frozen world.

## Ending Interlude

*Prime Minister Ishii sends a message to commander Kuo, telling him about recent budget troubles that the OCN has been facing due to the overwhelming economic burden of the Expanse Project, and the pressure on him to come up with a solution. Some members of the OCN are pressing to have exploration protocols halted to give them some room in the budget, and while Ishii doesn't want to do that, and is successfully resisting it for the moment, the fact is that he's running a deficit and might have to soon.*

*He needs Kuo's help to fend off the other politicians calling for CSV* Tesla *to be mothballed. He requests that one of Kuo's geologists be transferred back to Ortus, since the man's economic ideas are gaining traction among profit-oriented factions of the OCN. He also requests that Kuo start focusing on economic gains rather than scientific ones, bringing up his choice to study the psionic beacons rather than mining the mineral veins under them as an example. He knows he's going against Kuo's idealism, but says that it's necessary. He points out that "no amount of knowledge will be useful if there's no money to buy food."*

1. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=24
2. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=192
3. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=358
4. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=398
5. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=603
6. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=674
7. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=760
8. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=951
9. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1073
10. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1260
11. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1314
12. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1379
13. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1430
14. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1471
15. ↑ https://youtu.be/NluGE34r47E?t=1471