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Upon orders from Vice- Admiral Randi Southard, the Vanguard is sent on a mission of pure exploration along with 5 other ships. The nearest ship to them, the USS Ticonderoga (Concord-class) will be within range for two weeks before they are on their own. They are given a trajectory to head out along outside of Federation space, but have no clear mission other than to see what happens. Admiral Southand made it very clear that the Prime Directive was to be maintained.
After restocking both in supplies and personnel, the Vanguard crossed out of the Federation and moved into open but previously explored space. But, as they were going along their designated path, a curious and rare phenomenon appeared: an astral eddy! Science was keen to investigate and after some debate (due to the intense and dangerous nature of the phenomenon), they decide to take a look. One light year away, they stop and start taking data. But then the CO started experiencing something unsettling, before collapsing on the deck!
To the bridge crew, she was alive but unconscious, but for Captain Sin, something rather extraordinary occurred. She had some sort of dream-like vision where an alien woman welcomed her excitedly to 'Yalaca' and led Sin through a jungle area to a village, while Bahdria tried to get some answers about where she was. The woman explained by saying, "You are on Yalaca. Timm and Sola came together with Xokelen to summon you and here you are! Well I summoned you, but nonetheless, it is their doing."
In the simple village of these indigenous people, Bahdria saw a large stone structure in the shape of a small stellated dodecahedron which seemed very out of place in the rustic village setting. The woman also called the CO 'Hahnwana' and said that the sculpture was the 'Star of Light', "The mark of Sola, she who gives us light. Light, which is balanced with dark." She went on to explain that it had been the time of light and it was time for the darkness to come and that the CO/Hahnwana would make it happen. The time of darkness was explained as being the Terminus, where the current 'Avkaolo' will end and they would all reach 'Ladimus'. Sacrifices would need to be made, but that Sin, the honoured warrior would manage it.
Meanwhile in Sickbay, the CO was beamed in. Upon assessing her condition, Sin was found to be in a deep state of unconsciousness, but despite this her brain was highly active. Spikes in her neural readings showed she was experiencing intense sensory stimulation; visual auditory, kinaesthetic. Her memory centres were clearly active as well. Blood pressure and pulse were a bit high, but overall her vitals were stable. Further scans showed high levels of adrenaline, and that everything aside from her high brain activity while unconscious was normal, including reflexes. When Sin came to, she was confused, but the memory of what she had experienced was very, very clear.
On the bridge, the crew had continued observing the eddy and wondering if it was responsible for what happened to the captain. They sent out a probe to investigate it further, but then it suddenly disappeared back into the interfold layer of space, which can happen when something interacts with the eddy. A short time later, another erupted from the interfold layer 0.6 ly off the port bow, casting a strong gravitational wave outwards and hitting the ship hard. Many of the crew were injured in the process.
There was interference in the visual systems, and while the crew was determining the status of the ship, the CO, reluctantly released from Sickbay, appeared on the bridge. The status report showed that the impact by the wave caused surges in six EPS manifolds and had affected the shields. Engines were functional, though there were slight fluctuations in the warp reactor that was noted earlier by the CE. Weapons were undamaged and all holosystems had reverted to an inactive state the moment the red alert kicked in.
At that point, Bahdria started having flashbacks to the planet from her vision and an intense desire to go there. After examining the area of space and their data from the eddies, they determined that there were no planetary bodies in the area, however there were planets in the next system two light years away. Making a decision the captain orders the helm to proceed around the eddy to the next system.
On route, after finding out that the XO was critically injured, the Vanguard rendezvoused with the Ticonderoga who could take Commander Met'rel back to a proper medical facility, while a new XO came aboard from the Ticonderoga to replace Met'rel.
The Vanguard arrived in the next system where the CO felt inexplicably drawn to after her vision/dream/delusion (or whatever else it might be), and Sin ordered the ship to orbit the fifth planet.
Meanwhile, in Engineering, a mysterious metal box appeared seemingly out of nowhere and the engineers began to try to figure out what it was and where it came from. The box a was one metre long, 20 cm high and 50 cm wide and was gold in colour and metallic, and if someone tried to lift it, quite heavy. It was inscribed on the top with a series of unfamiliar symbols in a single band through the middle horizontally. The symbols were 10 cms high and all roughly the same size, though their shapes were very different.
Basic scans showed that the box was hollow, with no apparent seams and had nothing inside. It was made of commonly found alloys on the ship. Running the symbols through the computer but there was no direct match to the set. However there were subtle commonalities to 10% of the symbolic languages in the Federation database.
The box turned out to be in the exact place that Crewman Lansing (and NE) had left a crate of manifold components for a couple minutes while he logged one of the final repairs from when the eddy damaged the ship. The box was then beamed to Cargo Bay 1 to be studied safely.
Meanwhile, the CO was meeting her new XO in the ready room when the new XO noticed an unusual object on her Captain Sin's desk. It was a dark silver coloured bar 30 cm long, 5cm wide and 4 cm high that had a series of symbols etched onto the top surface and the two long sides had a series of six horizontal dashes spaced 2 cm apart. It was sitting where she had left a padd.
Holding the object, Sin felt once again an intense reaction and would know it was not harmful. She also felt the symbols were familiar but didn't know what they meant.
Back on the bridge, the Vanguard moves further into the system, sensors noted that the larger of the three ships at the shipyard (that orbited the populated moon), broke its watchful position and moved towards them at half impulse. Clearly their speed seemed non-urgent, and though the ship was decently powerful and had slightly better weaponry than the Vanguard, weapons were not powered up, though shields were.
The Vanguard hailed the vessel and were greeted by an alien being who explains that they have entered Sorriian territory and demands an explanation. They introduce themselves as Commander Sardrey Vorb of the Sorriian Guard Vessel Terahltz. Captain Sin explains that they are looking for a place called Yalaca, and that statement stuns Vorb. She explains that the Yalizi call their planet Yalaca. Having never encountered the Federation (aside from an extremely brief encounter with a Tellarite freighter that offered to help repair a damaged Sorriian vessel), she was confused as to how the CO heard that name before. Sin explains a little about being (supposedly) contacted by the Yalizi, but Vorb is not a scientist and does not know anything to be of help. She explains that the Yalizi are an indigenous species and anthropologists study them from a distance so they don't interfere in their society. She agrees to contact one of the specialists who study the Yalizi and get back to Sin, who continues to have an incredibly strong need to get down to the planet she saw in her vision.
Looking into the earlier encounter with the Tellarites, the CSO finds out that “[t]he encounter with the Tellerite ship was in open space and not along any major shipping lines, hence why the Sorriians were not a common encounter. Because the Sorriians were having engine trouble, they were at a full stop, and the Tellerites had left first after helping fix the Sorriian's warp drive, so it was impossible to hazard an accurate guess as to where they were going. All that had really been explained was that they were meeting up with another science vessel. There were six different star systems (including the one the Vanguard was currently in) 'close' to where the encounter took place, varying in distance from nine to eighty light years.” Whether this info was any help to their situation was not apparent.
Meanwhile in Sickbay, one of the biobeds was replaced by a large stone slab. It was the same length as the biobed, but rose only 20 cm high, with raised 'arms' are either end that extended one metre. It too had several symbols carved into it. A forcefield was erected around the slab and the bridge was notified. Preliminary and subsequent scans by a science contingent showed it was made up of several materials, all found on the ship, though the largest amount was simply granite. It was however laced with significant amounts of tritanium. The engraved symbols were all rather geometric in appearance and included a sun-like object with a cloud partially obscuring it, three short wavy lines stacked on each other, a simple circle and a triangle with three dots below it spaced evenly.
The box from engineering was transported to Cargo Bay 1. Stepping inside the forcefield, the COS and Ensign nolan examined the box. Since there were no apparent seams, Nolan slid her fingers along the metal to see if there were any junctions of any kind that might be hard to see. When she hit a certain spot there was a click, like something unlocking. Seeing that nothing had visibly changed about the box, they lifted it and found that the bottom had remained on the floor. The box was empty but the bottom piece had more symbols inscribed in each corner. Upon inspection, on two opposite edges of the bottom there was simply a small hole that looked like it curved horizontally. On the inside of the box, near the opening, and in spots that coincided with the holes, were thick but small hooks that seemed to have retracted inside the box.
As they examined things, Amelia noticed that her finger tips were slightly stained in a grey colour. Checking the box again where she had touched it to unlock it, she found that there was a subtle impression in the metal that perfectly matched her fingertips. Did her fingers act like a key?
Upon word from Commander Vorb, she, her defence officer (Brem Nadii Korentz and a Sorriian anthropologist by the name of Dr. Gorlan Seddrel beamed over to the Vanguard.
In the conference room, a rather excited Seddrel describes the Yalizi as a remarkable people with a complicated language of which even the few people like himself who had been studying them for years only knew a little of. After Sin recalls her experience, Seddrel explains that the Yalizi as a whole do not seem to have any sort of psi abilities, and then explains some important details of their culture. Commander Burke explains the Prime Directive and Seddrel says that the Sorriians have the same sort of rules. He also explains that they are refugees who came to the planet only 300 hundred years ago but that the Yalizi's population live on a small isolated continent and so they have been able to ensure that they do not taint the population while they are still developing. While it does not seem they are developed enough to have developed stellar travel, it is impossible to know that with absolute certainty.
Meanwhile, more reports of objects begin to come through, including a pair of candlesticks in Crewman Ascher's quarters, and a chair in the lounge that was turned into a metal and wooden square shaped urn with a plant. The lounge's environmental setting had also seemingly changed, becoming more humid and warm. Also in the lounge, one of the displays had blanked out aside from the appearance of three short wavy lines stacked on each other. This symbol also appeared on the bridge engineering terminal.
Vorb and Korentz return to their ship to contact the Chairperson while the Senior Staff and Dr. Seddrel had a briefing in the CO's ready room. After filling everyone in, including the situation with the mysterious objects appearing, it was mentioned that a similar situation as to what was happening on board the ship had occurred previously on the USS Enterprise D. Plans were made to look into things and an away team arranged for the (hopeful) visit to the surface.
An Away Team including the CO, COS, CNS, and CMO is beamed to the surface at the Sorriian duck blind above the Yalizi village. Commander Vorb and Chariperson Sil are also there along with Dr, Seddrel, the defence officer and the duck blind's research staff.
Before long, it was agreed that Bahdria could venture into the village to try and see if she could understand better what was happening to her. Dr. Seddrel, the CMO and the COS join her. The Dorwhil (village healer), named Arana, the same one from Sin's visions appears out of one of the huts and seems to be aware of them. Bahdria eventually reveals herself to the healer and is whisked away to another hut where a Yaliziz woman is in some sort of deep sleep and Arana tries depserately to communicate something to Sin.
Meanwhile on the ship, Ensign Nolan began actign oddly like she was possessed by another personality. She slipped in and out of the persona of 'Sola', with the crew trying to gather as much information as possible to understand why. But Sola made it very clear that her presence signals the end and requires a ritual sacrifice of all. As a concilitory gesture to show there's no hard feelings, 'Sola' has chosen Ensign Draver to be the first to be sacrificed. Ensign Nolan was secured behind a forcefield as a precaution.
After following orders to take a shuttle into a low orbit, Lt (jg) Cooper had a Sorriian ship questioning why he was in orbit without prior permission. Down below, the head Sorriians inside the duck blind grew nervous about the CO's interactions with the healer, Arana, and were prepared to transport the entire away team out if they prove to be a threat to the Yalizi.
In the village, Sin has been trying to her best to converse with the Dorwhil, but with the gestural component of the Yalizi language, it proved challenging. But Arana has given Bahdria a ritual knife for some unknown reason that is connected to Sola, and they are currently in another hut where another Yalizi woman seems to be in some sort of sleep state but possibly a telepathic one.
Meanwhile, the CE's systematic shutdown of the ship's systems and the isolation of the program that in the computer system has stopped the odd transformations.
With the contamination of a second Yalizi, the Sorriian Chairperson, Marsden Sil and the leader of their military, Commander Sardrey Vorb made the call to beam the away team out of the village.
The Vanguard crewmembers found themselves in the duckblind, which the Yalizi still didn't know about, and from there, they were beamed back to their ship and asked to leave. But of course many questions came forth, though there were some answers:
What happened to 'Sola' and how did she come into being? The sleeping woman was acting as a conduit and projecting that towards Amelia. Amelia's particular biochemistry acted as a key to unlock the box and the subtle changes the still unidentified substance allowed triggered dormant telepathic ability in Amelia that allowed her to be receptive to the persona of 'Sola'. Later scans of her brain and genetic makeup would show that somewhere along the line she had a telepathic ancestor, or maybe more than one. It was hard to say.
As for Captain Sin, her own unique biology made her susceptible to the particular frequency her 'visions' were transmitted on.
The computer virus was not only isolated, but also purged, but not before important data was sent to Command for analysis. It would take awhile, but they were able to pinpoint the 'contamination' point as being the moment when the first astral eddy hit the ship and they were open to the interfold layer. There was a tiny burst transmission sent and it corrupted a file in the computer that allowed the virus to propagate and take over.
How this was tied to the Yalizi was a more complicated matter. But later evidence found by the Sorriians in a nearby area revealed technology (an archive) from an advanced race that was revealed to be from the Yatala, the race that the Vanguard's temporal liaison had noted as being from the future. Subsequent investigations by the USS Ticonderoga in conjunction with the Sorriians later proved that the Yalizi and the Yatala were the same people.
So how did their own tech from the future get into the past? And for what purpose? It was hard to say, but after finding a transmission device, the Sorriians made the difficult choice to shut it down. How that would affect the Yalizi, who seemed to be channeling their own archived mythology and playing it out.
How it would affect the continued development of the Yalizi was unknown, but it would prevent other offworlders from being affected. As for the transmission from the eddy, well, that was another mystery entirely yet to be discovered.
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