Hunt for Miraak's Crystal
| Crystal Conflict | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 312 CE | ||
| Location | Local Bubble | ||
| Outcome | Followers of the Void Success | ||
| Combatants | |||
| Commanders | |||
CSIS and DCAE were alerted to a disturbance in Anor Londo, discovering that much of the city's population was missing and that the Terazene Crystal that contained Miraak had vanished, with a cult calling itself the 'Followers of the Void' later claiming responsibility, which the CSIS/DCAE, SDS Foundation, and Legion of Chaos (though the latter wanted it to ransom it) rushed to hunt down in order to reclaim the crystal, though after a series of failed terrorist attacks near the Polskan Great Archives it was revealed that the FOTV had fled into space, knocking the LOC out of the race for the crystal as both DCAE and SDS sent ships to find it. The SDS deployed its most advanced spacecraft known as the 'Nebula-1' to hunt down the crystal due to the FOTV being a highly militarized group capable of being a threat, having slowly grown in influence in the background since The Divine Resurgence by recruiting from anomalous individuals belonging to various species including Humans, Sangheili, Protoss, and some Theian Natives. The Nebula-1 tracked down the group to a large nebula within an unclaimed region of the Local Bubble, though upon entry many of their systems such as sensors and shields went offline as they passed a massive debris field containing the remains of 10-20 DCAE ships, prompting the Nebula-1 and its complement to enter a defensive formation as well as activating their thaumaturgic shields as something massive appeared to be approaching them, though instead of being a ship it appeared to be a massive spaceborn lifeform known as a 'Zerg Leviathan' being trailed by a flock of the Leviathan's children. Luckily by avoiding the Leviathan's attention, the creature appeared to ignore them as it unfurled its solar-sails which allowed it to access FTL Travel as a natural mechanism, allowing the Nebula-1 and its fleet o search nearby asteroids for the crystal, with the only site of note to be discovered being an abandoned installation which appeared to have been evacuated in a hurry, leaving behind a empty containment room which seemed to once contain the crystal. The SDS fleet marked down its location and continued their journey, though all further analysis appeared to suggest no one was there anymore.
The reports of the FOTV terror-attacks in northern Polsk near the Great Archives reached the SDS, prompting analysis by Containment-Area-15 which revealed that many attackers possessed anomalous capabilities such as telepathy and 'harnessing Void Energy', though what was initially a series of skirmishes turned into a full-blown crisis as a fleet of FOTV ships invaded and sacked the Hermitage Palace which overwhelmed Polsk's defences, prompting the SDS to deploy MAS Nu-7 and MAS Pi-1 to help disperse the attackers, though they were too late as only a few battles could take place before the FOTV fled the Alpha Sol System (with the OMM secretly following them) with only a few being captured by the SDS and DCAE, though tensions between the SDS and DCAE began rising once more as their 'secret agreement' from the Crimsonist Wars started to grow increasingly unpopular among the SDS.
Contact was once more lost with Anor Londo as the FOTV fleet assembled over the region, only for the CSIS fleet to suddenly arrive and launch an attack on the FOTV, whom began launching suicide attacks to stall the CSIS as a beam firing out of Anor Londo began to form a portal, prompting the CSIS to try bombing Anor Londo to the ground. The OMM attempted to survey the situation with a 'Stinger' Sub-Probe, but it was destroyed when it tried to enter the portal, so they sent a 'Spider' Sub-Probe to the source of the beam creating the portal. All of the sudden, a newly resurrected Miraak emerged from the portal before disappearing alongside the FOTV fleet, panicking the CSIS into a state of emergency. Miraak was indeed awakened, but his followers were left disappointed as Miraak had changed greatly during the millions of years he experienced in the crystal, allowing him to reflect on his ways.
OMM crafts began tracing where Miraak had went' allowing Miraak to sense the presence of the 'Metal Mind' they held as a benefactor, giving him the knowledge that it was really a artificial intelligence network known as 'HAWK' based in the Deep Core (which it used to hide itself due to difficulty of navigation and the area being clearly inhospitable) with unfathomable processing power thanks to inhabiting one of if not the only matryoshka brain within the Milky Way it uses to watch and observe the galaxy, though it rarely if ever intervened even with its purpose, intentions, and origins being lost within a endless network of sub-computers. Miraak telepathically called out to HAWK and inquired who it was as it appeared to be 'new' in Miraak's eyes, to which HAWK responded that it wasn't new and had seen Miraak before during a period of inactivity. The two introduced themselves to one another as Miraak felt 'something' curling through his mind, with HAWK admitting to doing this and stopping once being told that it was not something Miraak wanted. HAWK explained that Miraak likely hadn't detected it due to telepathy only being a very recent advancement in its systems on a galaxy-wide scale.
