Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-The Eldan tower called the Stratospire has remained active for centuries, drastically altering the landscape of the Northern Wilds. Considering the complete lack of highly intelligent creatures in the area, it stands to reason it has been in operation – albeit in a malfunctioning state – since the Eldan disappeared.

-The means by which raw primal energy maintains the Stratospire’s systems is beyond known galactic technology, yet the crystals required to power and repair the Eldan machine are readily available nearby. The Eldan were known for manipulating the primal forces of the universe, and now we see how capable they had become.

-Powerful elemental creatures of primal matter appear to gather near strong sources of primal energy on Nexus. They are enormous creatures and extremely aggressive,
despite the abundance of nearby “food” for them to consume, and possess only enough intelligence to fight. The local wildlife, though themselves imbued with the effects of primal exposure, appear to give them a wide berth.

CONCLUSIONS:

The disappearance of the Eldan is the great mystery of our age, and the answer will determine who rules Nexus. Perhaps here on Nexus a great weapon lies waiting to be discovered and turned against the Dominion, or secrets that bend the laws of time,
space, and energy to help the war effort.

The Stratospire, unfortunately, is not that weapon. Nor does the XAS believe it was what caused the Eldan to vanish. However, the events following the shuttle crash in the Northern Wilds prove that the Eldan routinely manipulated raw primal power on Nexus – even for what must, to them, have been a relatively simple machine.
This leads the XAS to conclude simple exposure to primal power would not have been enough to cause them to vanish.

Furthermore, although they are strong and dangerous to ordinary sentients, all that we know about the Eldan suggest they would not have considered the gronyx of the Northern Wilds a threat.

In the future, it would be foolish not to monitor the Stratospire facility for the safety of Exile settlers, but it is no smoking mag pistol. Our search must continue.
Algoroc or Celestion must hold more answers for us.

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ADDITIONAL

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-The team recommends that NMEs (non-Mordesh Exiles) wear hyperthermal underspacewear when exposed to the elements in the Northern Wilds. These items – and this is important – should be worn UNDER your clothing.

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-Everstar Grove provides definitive proof of the Eldan’s skill at manipulating the primal foundations of life. Aurin matrias believe the sentient tree designated Elderoot to be but one of many such creations.

-Elderoot also showed considerable technological modification, which may account for the ancient tree’s ability to communicate with great versatility.

-Considerable
evidence indicated Elderoot’s nanobiotic implants may not have been complete at the time of the Eldan’s disappearance.

CONCLUSIONS:

The very foundations of life were playthings to the Eldan, and living technology the stuff of toys. They manipulated technology and primal forces as easily as a Granok brews a Gnoxian bitter. To find such clear evidence of the Eldan’s skills still functioning, even thriving, confirms the Eldan were all they were rumored to be. They understood the fundamental components
of the universe and could manipulate them in ways galactic culture was only beginning to understand. However, it is also clear the Eldan did not intend to suddenly depart the Everstar Grove, let alone the planet Nexus. Elderoot was either left incomplete on purpose, or was simply an experiment never meant to live as long as he has.

The evidence for Elderoot being an incomplete experiment is largely circumstantial, but the strongest is the rampant infestation of parasitic creatures allowed to infest the
weakened tree before we discovered him. If the Eldan’s nanobiotic additions were meant to strengthen or protect Elderoot from such problems, they failed to do so.

There is another possibility: the Eldan’s technological additions were meant to weaken Elderoot’s natural defenses. This would seem a cruel experiment to perform on a being they themselves had granted sentience, but nothing we have found in Everstar Grove points to the Eldan as a kind or beneficent species.

As to the question of the
Eldan’s sudden disappearance so long ago, Everstar Grove offers sparse answers and even more questions. The Eldan were prodigious manipulators of life, but exactly how was Elderoot created – and why? Furthermore, did the old tree truly know the Eldan’s secrets? Can such a vast repository of living historical knowledge ever be replaced? Dr. Lazarin believes it may be possible, but many years will be required before we know for certain.

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ADDITIONAL

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-Dr. Lazarin and his team shall take the utmost care with and show the utmost respect for the remains, if any, of the late primal cybernetic organism known as Elderoot. They shall especially endeavor to keep anything particularly gruesome or horrifying to Aurin civilians out of view of the public until they have completed their work. Otherwise, Dr. Lazarin will need to fill out many more injury liability reports, and we are certain he doesn’t want to do that AGAIN.

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-A major discovery! With the aid of key Exile agents, Doctor Belle Walker has discovered and explored a operational Eldan exo-lab in Algoroc. This facility was protected by an Eldan AI designated the Caretaker.

-Access to Exo-Lab 14 was difficult due to the equally operational Eldan Annihilator, a massive construct reactivated along with the rest of the facility’s defenses. Had it
not been trapped by malfunctioning systems it could have escaped to threaten all life in Algoroc, and perhaps the planet.

-An extremely dangerous nanotechnological affliction of Eldan origin has infected both local wildlife and primal elementals.

CONCLUSIONS:

The XAS will be studying Exo-Lab 14 for many years to come, but even though Belle Walker and her allies deactivated the most dangerous threat in the area – the Annihilator – extreme caution should be exercised to avoid augmentation. There is
no known cure except death, and Eldan augmentor constructs still roam the area. It is hoped the Caretaker AI may be able to help us understand this threat more completely, although his knowledge seems as fractured as his personality.

It is uncertain what purpose augmentation served for the Eldan, but it seems logical the observed effects are intentional. The leading hypothesis is that augmentation was intended to weaken the free will of biological organisms, making them perfect servants. With no Eldan
to command them, however, the augmented creatures near Exo-Lab 14 have defaulted to an aggressive, feral state. We can conclude, however, that the Eldan did not succumb to augmentation at this site, or they would still be there in some form.

The Annihilator is our most powerful evidence yet that the Eldan created truly monstrous machines of destruction as well as wondrous forms of life. This particular Annihilator appeared to attack all life forms with impunity, and it is not difficult to imagine
such creations breaking free of their creators’ control. Could this be the simplest answer to the Eldan mystery? Did their own gigantic mechanical servants do them in?

Or was it, perhaps, whatever the Annihilators were built to fight that did it?

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ADDITIONAL

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-Doctor Walker’s scanbots have offered their own analyses, available in the complete encrypted XAS datafile. Scanbot designated Rusty also wished to express the belief
that the XAS should honor Doctor Walker yet again for her achievements in Algoroc since she is “just the greatest scientist in the whole blamed Exile fleet.” The scanbot designated Bolt disagreed, placing the blame for the outbreak and the annihilator squarely on Walker’s shoulders, adding, “If I have told her once, I have told her one thousand times – you do not need to push every random button and flick every random switch you find.”

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-The Eldan AI construct designated the Caretaker is operational at many locations on Nexus, including Celestion’s Exo-Site N22. This facility appeared dedicated to cloning.

-The Caretaker’s fractured AI systems and deteriorating connections have caused many of his avatars to behave in a dangerously erratic manner.

-Eldan cloning technology has proven even more advanced than expected. The Caretaker’s fractured avatar had planned to use existing Eldan tech to create armies of clones to “take back” the planet from “invaders.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Despite the earliest hopes of XAS leadership, we have not been able to easily answer the persistent mystery of the Eldan, even with the Caretaker’s assistance. At least not yet.
The AI’s memory backups appear to be scattered across the planet, and so far we have not met a Caretaker with anything close to all the answers. Local backups appear more reliable, meaning most Caretaker avatars still seem to possess knowledge of their immediate environment hardwired into their programming – even when all other personality traits fail. This is, no doubt, how he was able to conceive and plan his “clone army.”

If he’s this strong in an essentially broken state, the Caretaker must once have been an incredible powerful AI. We have no evidence that either he or his hypothetical army – an army that will now never be complete – were responsible for the Eldan’s disappearance. However, one cannot fail to wonder whether the Caretaker’s system degradation and erratic behavior came before or after the Eldan vanished.

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ADDITIONAL

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-Exo-Site N22 has been placed under FCON guard to protect the cloning facilities from being abused by the wrong people. Fortunately, we of the XAS are the right people.
Eldan cloning technology may even prove to be the key to resuscitating Serrick Brightland.

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

– The Focus of Air, a huge primal power source crackling with roiling energy, hangs in the sky over Galeras. Both artifact and machine, this Focus alone could be studied for decades before scratching the surface. It is one of six that have been detected from orbit.

– Galeras is rife with conflict. The mystical Pell worship the Eldan as gods, but they compete with the mighty Falkrin,
masters of the Nexus skies, to seize control of the region. The Exile capital of Thayd’s central location means Galeras is also constant witness to skirmishes between the Exiles and Dominion.

-The Eldan created enormous, intelligent, and immensely powerful forms of life they dubbed the Primevals, each, like the Focuses, aligned with a particular primal element. Osiric, the Primeval of Air, is a being of tremendous strength and power. Both Falkrin and Pell worship him as a god.

CONCLUSIONS:

Both the Pell and the Falkrin of Galeras are fascinating examples of accelerated evolutionary development – or in the Pell’s case, evolutionary regression – due to concentrated exposure to primal energy. The Pell, we believe, were once a servitor race to the Eldan, but have come to worship both their former “Masters” and the Focus of Air itself. They have become skilled at manipulating primal energy, and attempted to sacrifice several XAS researchers as part of a powerful ritual.

Could
the Pell have been the end of the Eldan? This ability to control primal power may have been a surprise to the Eldan as well, and an open rebellion by their servants could have caused them considerable difficulty. There would certainly be evidence of such an uprising, however, even after centuries. This possibility seems remote – the Pell almost universally worship the Eldan to this day, so slaughtering them would make little sense.

The Falkrin, on the other hand, appear to have long shared a dislike of
“groundwalkers.” Now the Primeval they worship as a deity, Osiric, has commanded the Falkrin to go to war against all outsiders. Although FCON repelled their attack on the Exile outpost, Skywatch, the battle was hard fought, while the Falkrin – and Osiric – remain a threat.

Did the Falkrin attack the Eldan as well, or did Primevals like Osiric make the Eldan disappear the old-fashioned way – by consuming them whole? Unlikely, but the possibility cannot be completely dismissed.

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ADDITIONAL

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The XAS absolutely denies the scurrilous allegations that certain Mordesh members of the academy retrieved, prepared, and consumed Falkrin eggs. This is impossible, as socially functional Mordesh do not consume ordinary food. However, XAS field researchers do strongly suspect the Chua have already perfected the Falkrin egg omelet and are well on their way to a perfect Rootbrute steak.

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-Rumors of a strange, mutated form of augmentation have proven true. The form of augmentation infecting the so-called “Ascendancy” does not rob the infected of conscious thought in any way, but instead offers many of the benefits of augmentation – increased strength, endurance, and overall health – while allowing the individual to maintain a modicum of control.

-The leader of the
Ascendancy appears to be Calidor Antevian, brother of the Dominion hero Toric Antevian. Now simply calling himself Brother Calidor, the former Vigilant cleric appears to be the primary infection vector for the rest of the cult.

– Augment Facility X426 is the source of this “ascendant” variety of augmentation. It also appears to be where the bipedal cyborg dubbed “Metal Maw” was created, which may help explain the unusual characteristics of the nanobiotic infection.

CONCLUSIONS:

The Ascendancy
appears quite interested in spreading their “gospel” of augmentation to the rest of the world as soon as possible, which may indicate their condition encourages this sense of urgency. An experiment like the creation of Metal Maw, if interrupted at the wrong time, could have left the augmentation nanites in a this kind of agitated state. That said, evidence from stolen Dominion records shows that Calidor Antevian was constantly overshadowed by his brother Toric, the “Vigilant Star,” who leads the
Radiant Legion. It is certainly possible his own feelings of inadequacy imprinted on the infection, leaving other victims vulnerable to his influence. The desire to spread the ascendant augmentation to others began immediately when Calidor’s group attacked the local Pell, attempting to turn them to the Ascendancy’s cause.

The XAS considers it extremely unlikely that ascendant augmentation had anything to do with the disappearance of the Eldan – there is no evidence it even existed in its current
form before Brother Calidor discovered it. Augmentation itself, however, has again proven a resilient suspect in the Eldan mystery, as the events at Augment Facility X426 show.

The only problem with this hypothesis is that there are currently no augmented Eldan wandering the planet, attacking newcomers. From everything we have seen of augmentation, this would be an inevitable result of such an outbreak. The possibility cannot be completely ruled out, but after meeting the Ascendancy many XAS
members have concluded augmented Eldan would probably have left Nexus to take over half the galaxy by now.

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ADDITIONAL

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There is, in fact, no “Metal Pa” or “Metal Paw.” Metal Maw is all on her own. Or his own. Frankly, we have so far had no volunteers to determine the correct pronoun to use.

Lore

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KEY FINDINGS:

-The Eldan conducted some of their most dangerous experiments not on the surface of Nexus but at hidden facilities on the Farside of moon Halon. Largely intact Eldan bio-domes still contain the results of ancient life experiments – many still alive and deadly.

-Eldan terraformers on Farside were operational for centuries resulting in completely incompatible biomes colliding. Mutant forms of creatures from the surface of Nexus can also be found
on Farside, along with more bizarre life forms more suited to vacuum.

-An infestation of squirg in the region has mutated due to prolonged exposure to primal energy and grown increasingly aggressive.

CONCLUSIONS:

Eldan terraforming technology was legendary in the greater galaxy once, and tales of their power to shape and manipulate entire worlds were widespread even in the days of the Cassian Commonwealth. And while such technology has been found on the surface of Nexus, the terraformers on
Halon’s Farside are in another class entirely.

Evidence indicates far more happened on Farside than terraformers left unattended, however. A natural disaster elsewhere on the moon appears to have nearly destroyed Halon in the recent geological past, and for now we can find no evidence the terraformers had any direct involvement. Farside’s terraformers and bio-domes show typical signs of abandonment now familiar from earlier investigations – not outright destruction – indicating the
disaster could have been natural. Although with the Eldan, that rarely seems to be the case.

This has led to a new guiding hypothesis for this research: there may have been no singular cause for the Eldan’s disappearance at all. It may have been a confluence of events with unexpected results that took even the ancients off guard. An asteroid could have struck Farside at just the moment the Eldan were busy fighting Megadroids. Mutated life forms could have found homes within abandoned technology,
leading to an outbreak of a mind-control parasite population. Rampant augmentation could have infested an as-yet-undiscovered Focus or Primeval. Some propose the Eldan may have truly ascended to godhood – and the Dominion is actually right.

One thing we do know: all evidence thus far has the XAS convinced the Eldan were not expecting to vanish. Their continued absence from galactic affairs more than a thousand years on seems to indicate the worst possible fate.

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ADDITIONAL

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Breathing apparatuses are required for survival over large stretches of the Farside surface. Dr. Lazarin has volunteered to provide helmets for Mordesh Exiles that socket into their existing biotech components. It’s rumored the doctor liberated them from a Grismaran ship he found adrift during the evacuation of his homeworld. The crew, all Ravenous, no longer needed them.