Humans Don't Hibernate [Part 32/?] (Patreon)

There is no greater tool within the arsenal of the sapient mind than that of the power of inference. This critical ability to construct a coherent image from what remains of a scant few scattered puzzle pieces, to weave together entire tapestries stretching back tens of hundreds of thousands of years using nothing but a single thread, was invaluable to my field of study. A field of study which so often relied on both utilizing this ability to its maximal potential, but also, to temper it with objectivism and reason. For the ability to infer was wrought with the same shortcomings of all activities of the mind, prone to personal and subjective biases which would otherwise turn a scientific field of study into that of a mere exercise in the imagination.

That was where our rules came in.

That was where principles established over careful, repeated observations were established and made into the norm.

Where the power of statistical analysis based upon carefully compiled and systematically reviewed sets of data were built up into established pillars of concrete rulesets.

There were patterns we observed, and from those patterns came these established schools of thought that we adhered.

This helped to temper the field of xenoarcheology. To create balance between the desire to imagine and expound, and the necessity of ensuring reason was applied to this venerable and essential field of academic study. Which at the end of the day was rooted in objective reason.

But what happens when all of that fails?

What happens when everything you were presented did not conform to any of these pre-established principles.

When the time-tested and scientifically-sound principles that had been propped up for millions of years is all but shattered by a single discovery; broken by a sample size of one?

You’d write it off as an anomaly if you wanted to keep your career intact, at least that’s how it was in the Vanaran scientific community.

But here? Upon being faced with something that actively seeks to undermine the foundation of extinct sapient civilizations? Without the constraints of the Vanaran xeno archaeological community’s scrutinizing eyes?

I had to accept that what I saw here had to be rooted in some other principle, or an aberration of existing principles that needed explaining all the same.

Whilst the Vanaran mindset was to attempt to skirt around this or in some way attribute it to but a minor inconvenient but ultimately irrelevant truth; my mindset now refused to conform to that.

The mere existence of humanity as the first non-hibernatiive race that had not only survived to build civilizations, but maintained a civilization that didn't follow through with the fears of ecological malignancy proved that anything and everything we used to believe in, was suspect to falsehoods perhaps propped up by some other malicious third party.

It was time to make my own conclusions now.

It was time to start taking humanity’s example, to start taking Elijah’s example, and tackle this new unknown without the shackles of the past holding me back.

“Weapons, small arms mostly, explosives meant not for just clearing out new tunnels and other engineering purposes but meant explicitly for military application… we’re looking at a proper armory here, Lysara.”  Vir offered up, having all but consolidated all of his observations of the room in a single, problematic sentence.

“Coupled with what we just discovered, and taking into account the weapons scattered around the front entrance of the place, I can’t help but to imagine that this whole place was geared for something else other than a last-ditch attempt at constructing a doomsday vault or some other primitive attempt at preparing for hibernation.” I finally admitted. “This goes against everything I know. This goes against every principle of civilization development that I’ve been taught as gospel.” I continued, as I looked over at Vir with my headfrills flickering every other second. “But I can’t let that hold me back. I have to keep moving forward.” The latter statement was meant more for myself than Vir as I let out a deep breath, steadying my resolve.

Vir, to his credit, did not move to immediately comfort me, instead allowing me to ground myself as he waited patiently for me to collect myself, before quickly adding. “Yeah. Now, this is just my own take, but, from my experience with the humans and the military, this place just doesn’t add up.”

I perked up at that, interested in seeing where the AI was headed with this. “Go on?”

“Well, for starters, assuming they’re an early intrasolar civilization right? So, no FTL, no heavy intrasolar infrastructure yet. No real presence in space other than a few satellites and the like… a moonbase like this would require a ton of effort to build. A global effort I’m guessing. Extrapolating from humanity’s own push into space, the first moon bases were constructed with either a purely scientific, economic, or strategic outlook in mind. You wouldn’t see an entire armory filled to the brim like some kind of army base, because what the hell would you need it for? Fighting aliens? Why wouldn’t you just build a huge fuck off orbital defense platform? Aliens wouldn’t just invade a particular patch of the moon. Fighting amongst yourselves? Well, the scans show no other moon bases around, and since this is one cohesive base, it has to be under the same organization. Tactically speaking this makes no sense. And I don’t see any real signs of this being a science outpost either, there doesn’t seem to be any real specialized equipment around to warrant that conclusion. That leaves industrial and strategic.”

“Which again, can be entirely dismissed given we have yet to see any helium 3 mining facilities or processing facilities anywhere on the surface of the moon. Industrial facilities such as those would be too large to miss and couldn’t have weathered away in such a relatively short timespan. Strategically speaking, this moonbase doesn’t seem to have any orbital support facilities, which completely removes any importance it may have in facilitating a jump-off point for initiating deeper-range launch missions into the solar system.” I interjected and concluded the observations made by the AI, to which Vir nodded in approval.

“Yeah, that’s more or less my take on it too.” The AI spoke with an affirmative beep. “However…” Vir quickly corrected himself as he brought up some of the scans of the fully kitted lab from the only part of the facility seemingly meant for long term habitation. “The reason why I mentioned the fact that this facility did not seem entirely kitted for science is because the stuff they have here just isn’t geared for practical space observation, or even geological sampling. It’s filled with a bunch of acoustic sensors, the same antiques you’d see used to detect geological disturbances. Earthquakes, volcanoes, anything underground, anything seismic, anything like that. Sure they also have ground acoustic sampling tech to detect different layers of rock and their density, but they seemed to be geared towards seismic sampling. Yet the moon clearly isn’t seismically active. Heck, judging from detailed scans we took of it and its composition I doubt it’s been geologically active for the past few eons. Definitely nowhere near the ballpark of this civilization’s existence, that's for sure.” Vir noted, as the readouts and scans of the equipment found in the science lab were quickly switched over to the live feed of the five drone teams.

“We have to keep pressing forward.” I concluded. “Let’s keep going.”

It was clear however that I didn’t need to do much urging as the AI pushed forward immediately after my commitment to see this operation through to the end.

Most of the drone teams had run into dead-ends by now, or at the very least, the end of what we were quickly designating as the standardized excavation pattern, because what we were quickly discovering was that these tunnels continued even without the tell-tale signs of the same grade of machinery and the same care and attention being put into them as before. The story being told now was of a rapid and unexpected  descent from purposeful and planned excavation, to one of desperation.

With numerous side tunnels emerging from the mainline tunnel system, its walls and reinforcement shifting from the standardized stark white to bare metal plates, to outright metal scraps by the time we’d hit just under a hundred miles. Exposed rock was starting to show, with the bare minimum of structural reinforcement being used as we reached parts of the tunnel system that were becoming increasingly hazardous and impossible to navigate. Certain sections of it being entirely caved in, with others simply being too small for our drones to even enter.

There was no rhyme or reason to any of this.

There was only this strange, otherworldly sense that whoever was in charge of this simply wanted to dig deeper into the moon. As if they were looking for something, or attempting to claw at something underneath the surface.

“Team one has reached the full extent of the navigable tunnel system on its part.” Vir announced, as the camera feeds on the two drones stopped at an uninteresting blank chunk of moonrock.

“Wait, can you zoom into that for a second?” I announced, noticing something peculiar on it.

Tapping a few keys on the console, and taking manual control for a moment, I zoomed in closer, revealing a few symbols resembling the written language we saw before in the hidden room.

“I don’t assume you have any idea what that could mean?” I turned towards Vir, who responded with a shrug.

“Unless we have some means of relating it to any known languages on record, I can’t begin parsing it without a larger sample size.” The AI responded with a sense of disappointment.

“It’s fine, does team two have anything to report?” I inquired as the monitor soon shifted to the perspective of the other two drones, who likewise ran into a similar end. This time, Vir didn’t need any prompting before he zoomed in to a particular part of the rock, revealing the same text from before, written in bold, spray-painted letters.

“It’s a repeat of the previous letters. I don’t want to postulate things without any evidence to support my claims but I believe it might be something to do with the fact that this is indeed, the end of the tunnel. Or perhaps some other designation similar to that. Regardless, we have to keep moving forward.” I announced as the monitor now shifted towards the perspective of team three.

Having been the spearhead of much of our discovery so far, it was surprising that it’d reached a dead-end before any of the other drone teams did. That was to be expected however considering the fact that the part of the facility it’d mapped out had been the most built-up portion, and as a result, had been the portion of the facility that didn’t seem to be wholly dedicated to the single-minded effort of hollowing out the moon. The end to this particular portion of the facility was, as a result, rather unremarkable. Nothing lay beyond the administrative, science, and housing facilities. The armory had been the  only large expansion before everything just ended.

This left team four and five, which the monitor quickly panned to.

Team four, having left the confines of the unexplained room housing that religious artifact, had indeed discovered something else in its section, a room that we’d expected to find earlier in fact. The room in question seemed to have, at one point in time, housed large excavation vehicles purpose built for this facility. Whilst the vehicles were no longer present, a large portion of the infrastructure required  to maintain them still remained. From energy siphons, to spare parts, the entire place resembled a motor pool. However, similar to the rest of the facility, the vehicles that should’ve been here were nowhere to be found, and indeed, the bodies of their operators were similarly absent.

Moving beyond the motorpool, was yet more evidence of the same breakneck pace of tunneling seen from teams one and two, ending once more at a barren chunk of moonrock, with the same spray painted lettering indicating its end.

This left just team five, which our eyes were now dead-set on for answers. We monitored its progress as it carefully surveyed every remaining square inch of the facility, delving deeper and past the hundred mile limit that had prevented teams one, two, and four from continuing. Indeed, the tunnels here didn’t seem to sacrifice their size, and in fact, kept getting larger and larger, until finally, opening out into a massive chasm.

The lights that we’d used thus far were set to illuminate the roughly 14 by 14 feet halls of the facility.

It did barely anything to illuminate the massive cavernous space we now found ourselves in.

So after inputting a few commands, we increased the luminosity to effectively cover this new space we found ourselves in.

A space that was over 100 by 100 feet in dimensions, and led down an equally upscaled tunnel.