Lancers IC Thread

The Head Librarian hesitates, then shrugs. "Most of it is the contents of a lost mail carrier pouch that was meant for a colony in the middle expansive period. Dating from the time First Contact was made with the R'thnx. Quite a lot of updates on their culture, biology, history, and religion. That last is important. After the war, information on the faction that caused the conflict was suppressed... including their cult of the Wave."

The Archivist sighs. "It is our great shame. Humanity's first contact with another species was sparked by their assimilationist beliefs.. which we have unsealed to lead to the current troubles here."

The Head Librarian continues, "I was Assistant Head before the conflict here. My superior ordered the materials sealed, then disappeared. The Wave grew here shortly thereafter. I fear that with the material in their hands, they could gain popular support and reignite the coup attempt in earnest."

The Head Librarian listens to the concerns, each in turn. "Fair questions. Firstly, Yes, there were cameras, and the footage reveals nothing." He taps his desk, transferring the footage for the Lance to study as they will. "The list of people who knew about the cache was restricted to Head Librarian Sorens and myself, Senior Archivist Mandel who is actually on the other side of the planet this week, and Archivist Burroughs."

He brings up some notes on the holodisplay. "The Cult of the Wave was revived one standard year ago tomorrow. It's origins remain a mystery. This is not the first time such a revival has occurred, two other worlds have suffered from it in the past three centuries. It is an insidious and difficult thing, some kind of embedded textual engramattic programming in the language that seems to translate easily into several race's languages." He gestures at Jikick. "All of us here except your Ick Lancer would be affected. Their language protects them."

He brings up a vid from a year ago. On the screen, popular game show "Tetrahedron Of Fortune" is interrupted by a burst of actual static, and replaced with a scrolling message that reads "THE WAVE SPREADS." after several scrolls, a hooded figure in white with a gold sine wave pattern across its full face mask appears. "I am the Reverend Sine. Your suffering has ended. Universal peace will be brought with the cresting of The Wave. Rejoice. We are coming."

The broadcast is briefly resored to the game before the taking news heads break in, at which point Ordenã stops it. "Within a week it was a full on civil war." He sighs. "I myself had suspected that Sorens was involved, but the iconography of the cult is no longer associated with them in the modern mind." He opens the desk drawer. "We found this in a hidden compartment." He puts a small replica ground vehicle on the desk. Carefully putting the unbelievably rare and ancient artifact away, he realized the appraising looks around him. "It's a replica, but someone put a lot of love into it." He frowns. "Maybe my old boss himself."

His desk chimes. "Archivist, can you show the Lance to the Vault please? I have to meet with the board of governors shortly."

---

The Vault is intact.. a hardened room that could withstand anything up (but not including) antimatter weapons. Like many things on the planet, it is tetrahedral, a dodecahedron of semi-inert superdense material 12 meters across each face. It is the only thing standing in the rubble of this wing.

Within, now completely empty, rows and rows of sterile stasis cubes sit idle and depowered.

The Librarian demurs on letting anyone handle the replica, but transfers the video to your archives as he hurries to his meeting.

On the way to the vault, the Archivist answers the question at hand. "Back on Old Earth, in the era just before humanity left the planet for the first time, there was a culture of those who used an early, unpowered variant of the jetboard called a "surf board" to go "surfing"... on waves. When the book first arrived in the Sol System, the original human version of the cult revived their iconography, idiom, and method of dress to represent themselves." She quickly transfers some reference material to the Lance.

At the vault, there is a clear mark of some device that was adhered to the entry panel sensor, but no obvious trace of what it was other than vague outline similar to a pair of VR/AR goggles with an odd protrusion.She leads you through to an entirely nondescript storage unit roughly in the middle of the area. "Here we are. The Cache was stored in unit 1963."

"Well now I understand the name of the group." He says aloud. "I can't add much to that, Earth history is only marginal in my line of work, but that device used on the vault is interesting," he says while others examine the item. He pauses and thinks.