Exhaust Whispers

From Beacon Space

Exhaust Whispers

Detected from the sector south east for as long as the Concord has been recording the Exhaust Whispers are a mixture of sound and light waves from beyond the recorded beacon space sector. The exact origins of these waves are thoroughly unknown. Their frequency has never been consistent, sometimes disappearing for years and even decades at a time before returning. But at other times being consistent for months at a time. Given the distance these waves seem to travel they logically must be lightyears away and whatever emitted them is likely either defunct or no longer transmitting but their obscure nature prevents an exact reading on the situation. The emissions have been detected in the 1210 hex but have also been found on all the explored planets the concord have found in the hex chain 1410, 1510, 1511 and 1412. However their exploration further south in the sector have not recorded these same emissions, leading to the belief that they come more from the sector east than sector south east.

There are several schools of thought on what exactly these waves are. Given the nature of the Concord it is perhaps unsurprising that the most popular school of thought is that these waves are emitted by the Jailor ships or colonies. The advanced technology of the Jailors is of course the reason why these emissions have been so seemingly impossible to properly identify. Exactly what technology the Jailors use that is producing the emissions have a wide variety of explanations, from communication signals to advertisements to exhaust emissions from their drives, from which the emissions gained their colloquial name.

A second theory comes from the Cult of Bernard who are convinced that these emissions are emitted by another Bernard station. Of all the leads the cult has opted to follow this is one of the few which may have some credibility, not because they’re actually right but because the exact evidence is irrefutable, any theory is potentially as good as any other. Their curiosity in the matter, and the lack of the ability to readily translate the waves, mean that the cult have invested the most energy into recording and cataloguing the emissions since its inception. (The concord officials have taken little action to interfere with this cataloguing these emissions as it means they don’t need to spend the cost to record the emissions themselves). What has convinced the cult of their conviction is that some of the sound waves sound almost like the lapping of waves upon a shore.

A third theory has emerged after contact with the Aguamala Syndicate and their long history of hunting spacebound fauna. This theory is that the emissions come from an as of yet undiscovered fauna or flora which both explains the inconsistency of the emissions and why they may not actually be from as far away as was first believed. As the Concord increased contact with the rest of the sector, and through their own experiences exploring the sector, they have come to understand that the variety of space based fauna is far more varied than they knew.

A final theory is the most recent due to the even more limited experience the concord has of the subject and that is that the emissions are a product of the bleed. Exactly how these emissions are bleed based is also not known but if the bleed is involved then the origin point of the waves could theoretically be far closer than is typical from recorded sound and light waves. It has been speculated that if the bleed is involved then it may go some way to explaining why the waves are so hard to record and decode, with some sort of inherent technomantic effects built into the waves themselves. If this is true then a successful decoding of the waves may potentially lead to increased knowledge in encoding or decoding technology.

Given just how confusing these emissions are it is thoroughly difficult to come up with a satisfactory conclusion. The light waves are especially complex and Tar’et scientists have had to explain that the spectrum emitted by these waves extends quite far out of the range of human and queltl perception. It is possible that there is a natural non-biological explanation of these emissions but the investigators are thoroughly perplexed as to what natural phenomenon would produce these waves.

Regardless of the true nature of their origin these emissions were one of the factors in the creation of the Zoanthi Chain