Cosmic Exploration Ventures into the Sea of Stars

The jointly-run Cosmic Exploration project has announced a number of new accomplishments and findings, beginning with new developments upon the lunar surface and ending with a number of new scientific breakthroughs and discoveries announced by the team of scientists currently making a go of it on the lunar surface.

The first announcement - that development of the lunar colony and all of its facilities were nearing completion - was met with jubilation both by staff working upon the site of the lunar colony, and by the scientific community of greater Etheirys, as this serves not only as proof that the surface of the moon can and does support life, but also that this could mean the potential to further visit other stars and other planets.

After the establishment of a colony upon the surface, research turned to various other ideas: how to make the lunar regolith capable of supporting life beyond simple fungi, and how to draw potable drinking water for the colony to use, among others. But to look upon this bustling, joyous crew, staring back at what they have accomplished, it's hard not to feel proud and accomplished at what they've created there. But if you figured that the initiative would simply stop at survival, they've already managed to spread beyond.

The crown jewel of the lunar instillation is easily the Galacticway, a small ship with aetheric teleportation capabilities that allow it to burst through the cosmos thanks to its cosmohopper drive that allows it to leap the cosmos almost as easily as an adventurer travels between aetherytes. The near-instant warp travel capabilities this grants the ship expand its range to beyond anything the Etheirys scientific community has ever been able to comprehend. And this marvel of science has already lead to a startling new accomplishment.

The Galacticway has touched down on the surface of a planet not of our star.

Originally given the scientific designation UL-9-6 (the sixth planet of the star designated UL-9), the loporrit Namingway dubbed the planet “Phaenna.” Phaenna is a planet containing silicate in large amounts. to the point where shards of molten glass can come slashing down as rain, the water is full of fine silicate particles, and deposits of glass can be found littering the entire countryside, in the ground strata, practically everywhere you look. If the Cosmic Exploration initiative was going to give themselves a trial by fire, Phaenna makes a very solid one.

Of course, astrologians and astronomers have long suspected Stars like Phaenna, or those of similar extreme conditions, are common in the Sea of Stars, and that so-called 'garden worlds' like Etheirys are relatively uncommon in the vastness of space. Such trials by fire may seem saunting, but should our reach as Spoken extend into the cosmos, exceeding on Phaenna is critical to the future, not only fpr the Cosmic Exploration team but for Etheirys as a whole. And using what the expedition learned on the moon has been just as critical in making research on Phaenna possible.

The surface water and vegetation are both full of the same silica compounds that the ground is, and as such, both require processing so they can be used. The same rainbow crystals that power the lunar colony are in use here, and as such the capability of the crystals and the settling crew that both seem to be well on their way to not only establishing a colony, but are also preparing to start on a forward launch base for further exploratory launches once the colony is capable of processing and producing enough in the way of supplies to outfit further launches and for shipment back to Etheirys for further research and processing.

The high amount of silicon on Phaenna seems to indicate that it serves as a fundamental architectural agent for life on the Star, as opposed to how carbon works on our Star. If that's the case, life on Phaenna might be facinatingly different from our own. For instance, while most life on Etheirys consumes water to live, alchemists and zoologists have suggested that silicon-based life would need to consume liquid methane instead.  

The possibilities for research into interstellar materials and their use are staggering, and institutions on our Star are already clamoring for samples of these plants and other raw materials to further their uses and see what could possibly be made or improved with. The House of Splendors, Anamnesis Eorzea and the Higuri Regalia are among those making requests for samples of Phaennic material.

But perhaps the most surprising scientific and cultural discovery was something that was discovered purely upon accident upon Phaenna's first cosmic survey.

Found in a slowly degrading orbit over the planet's northern latitudes was what researchers are calling a “miracle find” - a damaged spacecraft of supposedly Allag origin, damaged but still barely-active condition- and with the preserved body of its pilot locked away in a chunk of chemically-infused ice, their personal possessions still scattered about the hold. Culturalists and sociologists are currently lining up to try to make in-roads as to the small glimpses said things could give us into the social aspects of the fallen empire.

Though surprising, it isn't beyond the realm of imagining. Allagan technology was capable of creating an entire orbital structure that was long-thought to be a lesser natural moon over Etheirys. This space station was not the only Allagan foray into the Sea of Stars, as evidenced by the technology found on the remaining moon. Allag's space program was formitable beyond most modern comprehension, so the discovery of a derelict adrift over Phaenna isn't the kind of radical recontextualization of the Empire's history it may seem to the average layperson.  

The body of the pilot has been claimed by Anamnesis Eorzea, who have promised samples of hair, tissue and fluid to various other academic institutions for research purposes, with the salvage rights to the ship in question currently lying with the Cosmic Exploration initiative. Naturally, the Sharlayan Forum, being the other major contemporary space power on Etheirys, is practically beating down the Cosmic Exploration initiative's door to get to examining and wresting forth the secrets of Allag interstellar travel from the millenia-old spacecraft. By last report, the remains had only just arrived at the Anamnesis Eorzea museum's laboratory for controlled defrosting and analysis.

Iris Blanchimont, both a scientific advisor for the Cosmic Exploration initiative and the Special Collections Chairwoman for Anamnesis Eorzea, has tasked top engineers and aetherologists in the institute's employ in understanding how Allag's reach extended so far, assigning the project to the institute's head of research M'Sheerah Ahkabila and her own daughter and Cosmic Exploration engineer Lita Blanchimont. 

The eagerness of various institutions on Etheirys in both the craft and Phaenna as a whole posess the potential to become something of a gold rush for researchers, engineers, and even the everyday crafthouses across the Star to seek out what new possibilities are raised by the opening of this bold new frontier in exploration and discovery.