Project Centennial

Spoiler WarningThis article contains references to or details of key events portrayed in *These Sundered Stars*. To return to the home page, click the image to the left.

Project Centennial is a scientific research project initiated by the University of Aglostarros, on the planet of Aglostarros in the Coreworlds. It was launched in 2165.

The Project comprises a swarm of 100 exploration drones known as Centurions, each set on a trajectory which would take it from Aglostarros into the depths of unknown Space. Their purpose is to observe and report on astronomical, biological, technological and even sociological phenomena not yet accessible to manned expeditions. The Centurions were contacted, monitored and coordinated via the Project Centennial command console, whose design would be considered outdated by modern standards, comprising mostly brass toggle switches and glass monitors which display raw data in black and white text. However, despite being archaic, the software was also designed to survive for a century, and so is deliberately simple, providing the Centurions with two simple directives: explore and survive.

The Centurions were developed with the aid of Professor Argil Stroth, great-grandfather of former Aglostarros University Museum Curator Endelle Stroth, whose seminal thesis *On Adaptive Programming* formed the basis for much of the probes' adaptive survival systems. The paper's influence earned Argil a permanent place on the Project Centennial team.

Although the Centurions were expertly engineered for sustained operation and designed to withstand a multitude of environmental hazards, the Project soon lost contact with them. Historical reports claim that the probes simply stopped responding.

Following years of inactivity and eventual defunding, Project Centennial was mothballed by the University and its command console was moved into storage on the archive levels of the AUM.

100 years later, in the year 2265, the command console began to receive messages from Centurions once again, and as a result it was found and reactivated by the Museum’s night guard Garrad.

The extensive data sent back to Aglostarros by the Centurions allowed the Museum to create its Project Centennial exhibition, which showcased the Project’s most intriguing discoveries from beyond the frontier of the Coreworlds Conglomerate. The continuously-expanding exhibition represented only a fraction of the information gathered by the Centurions.

The Project and its discoveries captured the imaginations of the citizens of the Coreworlds. As the work of Project Centennial bore fruit, it attracted the attention of the Conglomerate’s military, which sought combat applications for discoveries such as the 'Living Wall' orchid. The Vice Chancellor of the University ultimately signed an agreement with the military to allow unfettered access to the Project’s findings.

Entries in the Project Centennial archives are catalogued using six-digit Item numbers, with Items categorised by type.

When the ARK Mandate was established by the AUM approximately one month after the Harthoe disaster, then-Curator Endelle Stroth was quick to clarify that the Mandate was a separate entity from Project Centennial, although she conceded that the two were “undoubtedly connected in spirit.”

Press reports suggested that the appearance of Project Centennial’s Centurions within the borders of the Queil Empire was one of the many threats to galactic stability to be addressed at a meeting between representatives of the Trifold Union’s member states and Curator Stroth, at the Threshold of the Ninth Plane on Andar Prime. These reports noted that the Project’s discovery of Astrum-36 had subsequently placed AUM at the centre of numerous worrying developments in galactic politics.

When Curator Stroth later visited the Galactic Liberation of Wonder movement at its headquarters beneath the Halls of Aneth on Kollian, she provided her guide, Challe, with a device which would give GLoW backdoor access to Project Centennial’s data, software and Centurion probes. She insisted that this was only so that the movement could observe the Project’s findings and not interfere, or else risk raising suspicion. However, Challe’s response suggested that GLoW had other plans. A source cultivated by the AlTime News Channel within Coreworlds Intelligence would later disclose that the Project had indeed been compromised by GLoW, which had begun opening backdoors into the Project software faster than Coreworlds Intelligence could close them.

When visiting the Zelkuun Eyrie orbital station in the Empire of the Queil, Centurion 68 noted that the base code of the experimental software Martyr Protocol, which was being developed in the station, bore a striking resemblance to that of Project Centennial. Specifically, it observed that the central console’s ability to control conected starships mirrored the way in which the Project’s console on Aglostarros coordinated with the Centurions. The similarity could have been coincidental, however.

After the Trifold Union issued a warrant for the arrest of Endelle Stroth, the former Curator was stripped of her title and fled from the Coreworlds. In the wake of the incident, the Vice Chancellor Donior of the University of Aglostarros gave a statement advising patrons that the Project Centennial exhibition would need to close for a couple of weeks, “to ensure that the Museum remains safe and welcoming”. However, Donior later gave a statement via the AlTime News Channel to reassure the public that the Project would remain open in the long term.

Meanwhile, though absent from the Museum, Stroth continued to take notes and analyses of everything around her, in the hopes that her findings would one day be added back into Project Centennial's archives.

In the year 2270, the Family Oramande purchased a majority share in in the University of Aglostarros, in a transaction valued at more than ⍺1,000,000. Baroness Dorn Oramande subsequently appointed herself as the AUM's new Curator. Speculators believed this move would be followed by the permanent closure of the Project Centennial exhibition, a rumour which drove up the price of alien antiquities substantially. GLoW was uncertain about how to respond to this development. The closure was later confirmed, and the Project's artefacts were sent to "secure storage", according to a museum spokesperson. A GLoW rumour-mongering campaign suggested that these exhibits had instead ended up in the Oramandes' private collection.

However, the Project Centennial exhibition was spared from full shutdown by the arrival of the Centurions into the Ele Dominion, an area of space that was almost entirely unknown to the citizens of the Coreworlds. Their fascination with the new discoveries gave the Project a new burst of momentum.