- "~(8^(|)) marge get me a duff"
Hello delicious friends, today I have an interesting one for you all. Recently the flight data from the Morbus expeditions silently got added to the UDD Database. I think it has something to do with the recent change in primary donors from SolGov to CDX Historical (Which we all know has way better relations with Yamada-West, especially after that recent debacle involving the 5k NGC register), so I took a deep dive into it and well, Morbus-8A is an interesting case.
First let's get some background. As some of you may know the Morbus missions were a series of scouting missions starting as far back as 2240, and was one of the first major survey attempts by a non-governmental entity, Yamada-West. The mission structure was simple, 20 different scout vessels (1A to 10B) would be sent on a flight path mapping 150 different systems in each NGC registry (mind you this was before automated survey drones were advanced enough for these sorts of deep space conditions) from 5k to 10k, with two vessels sent on the same course with a staggered delay of 10 years. The second mission acting as a rescue team, with the joint purpose of confirming any survey beacons left behind by the previous crew. The initial team after placing all their beacons (mind you, 10 to 150 systems!) would cannibalize their spacecraft and enter a pseudo-cryo state until they could get recovered. Early outward criticism mocked the supposed ‘bravery’ of the men and women involving, and Yamada-West got a lot of flak for what were essentially suicide missions, though after the crew of Morbus-1A linked up with 1B, and then 2A with 2B, well a PR disaster 50 years in the making turned into one of Yamada-West’s greatest achievements in the space pioneering sector. Not everyone got back though, team 3A never got recovered in time since the 3B crew had a faulty fuel line and exploded tragically on planetary entry, and the 8A and 8B missions were for all intents and purposes considered lost to space, at least until today.
With that in mind, here’s a paraphrase of the deeper files of the Morbus-8A mission, mind you we still don’t have data on 8B, and that might give us a better picture of what happened to Ben Davuth, Jeffery Kema, and Mait Klavan. Thankfully the record is actually pretty robust, so here we go:
- "~(8^(|)) marge get me a duff"
The Morbus-8A was a scout vessel that was a part of the Morbus deep space expeditions sent to map 150 different systems in the 8000 NGC registry. The crew of the Morbus-8A would go on to survey a total 136 different systems, placing their 10th and final beacon on the 137 planet. However, instead of following their mission directive and awaiting rescue, the crew of the Morbus-8A did not land after survey, and continued deeper into the 8000 NGC registry for unknown reasons. The craft was discovered by the confederate patrol boat Conrad, and later recovered near NGC-8641 having been caught in the orbit of a local terrestrial exoplanet NGC-8641-B. Allegedly the Conrad was responding to a distress signal originating in the system. It ceased broadcasting shortly after visual contact with the Morbus-8A was made (this has been corroborated with numerous eye-witness reports from the communications crew of the Conrad).
Nothing is amiss in the Morbus-8A’s log up until the 7th survey beacon was dropped and returned positive results in the NGC-8122 system. The beacon had been fired at NGC-8122-A, a terrestrial planet, though due to a calibration error it instead entered the atmosphere of NGC-8122-B, a gas giant in retrograde orbit around the system’s star.
The crew of the Morbus executed an emergency burn out of the system 14 minutes and 26 seconds after the beacon returned its results. The burn lasted for 43 minutes and spent the later half of the crew’s fuel reserve, leaving them entirely out of range of previous mission targets.
The ship’s system registered 1045 unique update requests from the on-board IR-C (far infrared) sensors during the burn. The target? NGC-8122-B. Unique requests would continue to be made over the next 48 hours with a precise 20 minute schedule between each request.
Now off course,the Morbus-8A redirected to a set of unmapped systems adjacent to their previous route, continuing standard mission protocol.
Survey beacon 8 launched with a negative return after visual contact with NGC-8870-C was made.
Survey beacon 9 launched with a positive return at NGC-8872-A, just two systems over.
Survey beacon 10 was launched a whole 3 weeks later, during which the Morbus-8A made a course correction and executed another emergency burn ‘towards’ the 9k NGC registry. During these three weeks the Morbus-8A was permitted to drift outside of any gravitational wells, the only system power being used on IR-C scans and life support systems. Navigational systems were disabled entirely. Beacon 10 made contact with terrestrial NGC-9565-A, only 10ly from the Morbus-9A mission’s 5th survey launch. Though as previously stated the Morbus-8A continued on its irregular flight pattern, opting not to use its remaining fuel to land.
Instead, in one last emergency burn, the Morbus-8A reoriented back towards the 8k NGC registry (re-entering 8k space 2 weeks later). With enough fuel for a planetary entry remaining, the Morbus-8A drifted. System power ran out 9 months later. The Morbus-8A entered local orbit of NGC-8461-B 5 years later.
From biometric data, we know the crew entered a pseudo-cryo stasis using their landing supplies inside the flight cabin. Though upon recovery of the craft, none of the crew were revivable, two had died of dehydration induced by improper cryo-sealing. Mait Klavan actually was legally ‘alive’ when recovered, though they had by then suffered acute cryogenic sickness, their brain activity essentially boiling down to just their autonomic brainstem functions.
These men were all highly experienced trade pilots that all had joined on with Yamada-West at the peaks of their careers. Make no mistake, their maneuvers were not some excerpt of space sickness or some other human condition, there was purpose behind it all, but to what ends we don’t really know.
Here’s the kicker, NGC-8122 was officially investigated with a remote probe by Yamada-West and CDX Starworks. Both found no evidence of there ever being a gas giant in the system. NGC-8122-B apparently doesn't exist.
If you ask me, I think they were running from something that was on that ‘planet’, but fuck me as to what it was / is. I’m not usually some super skeptic, but this is all just, so strange. It all adds up, but I don’t want to accept that sort of explanation, because that sort of thing just, doesn’t happen. Unless it does?
- "I can swear someone somewhere is watching me."
Good thread. There are some case photos in the additional materials packet iirc, but I can't get to them right now because of a 503 error. Could someone else post them?
