The ancient relic drifted through space, a curious artifact that was unmarred by meteor impacts like something of its age should have been. It looked like a massive, steel egg, unmistakably not of natural origin. This thing was built, crafted together by some civilization, perhaps a civilization long dead, long gone. Whatever the case may have been, it seemed completely devoid of life or activity. It might as well have been a dead, inactive object.
But then a small meteor did strike its hull, but rather than damage the object's hull, the rock was instantly vaporized by a brief, green glow that surrounded it. The energy shield put the lie to the relic's lifeless appearance.
Within the metal object, another story was taking place. Empty corridors wound around its entirety, empty, seemingly vacant throughout. But upon closer examination, one would notice the machines, the curious automatons of various shapes and sizes hanging up high in the occasional alcove, motionless and dormant. Nothing moved, nothing stirred.
At the core of this vessel, populated by inactive robots, was an eternal power source that twisted the light of its containment around it, absorbing the x-rays and Hawking radiation it emitted. One of the most feared stellar objects in the universe, utilized as nothing more than a simple battery that would last for millennia. A black hole.
Several floors above this power core, the bridge, as silent and lifeless as the rest of the ship, was located. Not a single light was lit, nor was a screen. A chair sat at the center of the bridge, vacant, several cables hanging from the ceiling above it, clearly meant to connect with the occupant somehow.
That occupant, who presently slept within some kind of pod in an adjacent room, seemed as lifeless as everything else. Humanoid, but clearly not organic, the being looked peaceful, lost to time. Various cables connected with its body while it lay remote in that pod, unthinking, oblivious of its surroundings. Alone.
How long the vessel drifted, and how far, one could only guess. It was remarkable enough that it had apparently escaped a terrible fate of colliding with an astronomical object during its immeasurable lifetime.
Dead. In space. For all of eternity. Or so any observer would have thought.
Then the object picked up radio signals and the ancient behemoth came to life. Lights lit up within the bridge, monitors began turning on. Clicks, whirs, buzzes, blips. Information and loading screens began scrolling across the now functioning screen, instruments attempting to calculate the source of the radio traffic. Determine its frequency. Determine its artificiality.
And in the pod, in the other room, the sleeping, silicon being started returning to consciousness, her dreams ceasing, and diagnostic numbers filling her vision. The process of reviving her from her eons of slumber was finally at hand. What kind of universe she'd find, only time would tell. What was time, but a manifestation of the force of entropy within the cosmos, a curious anomalous side-effect of the creation of the universe itself, of quantum fluctuations and probability, each moment created and destroyed in an instant.
Its passage was meaningless to her.
((RP is open, feel free to join it if you'd like.))
But then a small meteor did strike its hull, but rather than damage the object's hull, the rock was instantly vaporized by a brief, green glow that surrounded it. The energy shield put the lie to the relic's lifeless appearance.
Within the metal object, another story was taking place. Empty corridors wound around its entirety, empty, seemingly vacant throughout. But upon closer examination, one would notice the machines, the curious automatons of various shapes and sizes hanging up high in the occasional alcove, motionless and dormant. Nothing moved, nothing stirred.
At the core of this vessel, populated by inactive robots, was an eternal power source that twisted the light of its containment around it, absorbing the x-rays and Hawking radiation it emitted. One of the most feared stellar objects in the universe, utilized as nothing more than a simple battery that would last for millennia. A black hole.
Several floors above this power core, the bridge, as silent and lifeless as the rest of the ship, was located. Not a single light was lit, nor was a screen. A chair sat at the center of the bridge, vacant, several cables hanging from the ceiling above it, clearly meant to connect with the occupant somehow.
That occupant, who presently slept within some kind of pod in an adjacent room, seemed as lifeless as everything else. Humanoid, but clearly not organic, the being looked peaceful, lost to time. Various cables connected with its body while it lay remote in that pod, unthinking, oblivious of its surroundings. Alone.
How long the vessel drifted, and how far, one could only guess. It was remarkable enough that it had apparently escaped a terrible fate of colliding with an astronomical object during its immeasurable lifetime.
Dead. In space. For all of eternity. Or so any observer would have thought.
Then the object picked up radio signals and the ancient behemoth came to life. Lights lit up within the bridge, monitors began turning on. Clicks, whirs, buzzes, blips. Information and loading screens began scrolling across the now functioning screen, instruments attempting to calculate the source of the radio traffic. Determine its frequency. Determine its artificiality.
And in the pod, in the other room, the sleeping, silicon being started returning to consciousness, her dreams ceasing, and diagnostic numbers filling her vision. The process of reviving her from her eons of slumber was finally at hand. What kind of universe she'd find, only time would tell. What was time, but a manifestation of the force of entropy within the cosmos, a curious anomalous side-effect of the creation of the universe itself, of quantum fluctuations and probability, each moment created and destroyed in an instant.
Its passage was meaningless to her.
((RP is open, feel free to join it if you'd like.))