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Mar Ani Mansfield's Selected Logs
(Recently recieved by thinline from deep space)
Beth--
The two Kannick and single Artemis collectors were behaving very oddly. I had been watching them for a few days after I noticed a few things odd with their behavior. They never mined, they wandered about as if searching for something, and when one wandered over by me and summarily was destroyed, a replacement wasn’t called in until the whole team was down.
I was staring at the oddly beautiful fluid search pattern of these Bots when I noticed an odd modulation coming through the chat channels on the standard comm set. I tried several different approaches to isolating the coded pattern repeating in the static and interference...only to recognize a Mansfield Trading Family transmission key addressed to the Family Co-Op.
I recorded the burst, copied it, added the standard header, and retransmitted the burst on Family channels.
Unraveled--
(UIT) Senator Mannie Mansfield is my Paternal Grandfather. Known publicly for his embezzlement of several large exploration funds set up for profitable returns on deep space searches for exploitable resources and his subsequent disappearance, it is known in his family that his reasons are altruistic even if the means were underhanded.
His lifelong dream was to find where the wormhole to Old Terra moved to...Sen. Mannie spent his own sizable fortune, as well as several others, to fund an expedition for this purpose...by hook or crook, as it were.
My father had retired from a life of manufacturing widgets, when the UIT senate tapped him to repay His fathers debts and make reparations...PapaSan Mani took to a traders life in the freebus in an attempt to pay the family debt after his own fortune was depleted, and to save the family name. However, he could only start to repay UIT when he himself crumbled under the pressure.
It fell to me. Despite the fact I was raised on Sol 2, estranged almost, after recovering from a particularly viscous battle in Deneb, I found myself with outstanding fortune and a fully operational plasteel-alloy skeleton. I made enquiries and paid the UIT coffers, but the cloud remains over the Senator’s name and family. They say he’s a coward, which may mean little in the UIT, but the world in Serco space.
Helios--
I had put the coded message out of my head and was mining a itty-bitty heliocine roid I had found a few clicks from an unspecified station (trade secret) when PapaSan sent a directive.
He had decoded the transmission, which was a call from deep-deep space for assistance in the form of perishable supplies, and repair materials and tools. The signature, while garbled a bit from magnetic resonance interference, seemed to authenticate as (UIT) Senator Mannie Mansfield. The message contained explicit directions for reaching their location. I was to load up a moth with everything requested and hightail it out there, and above all, find out what they may have found and implore the Senator to return if at all possible.
Unspecified Sector/Unspecified System--
I have arrived at the location specified, but have found nothing more than a few discarded drive components, and a few screaming hot roids. I can only suppose from the lack of debris or energy sig, that repairs were made and the expedition moved on. I hope Grandpa Mannie finds what he is looking for so he can return a hero rather than a pariah.
The stars here are strange, and the comms all but silent. The only sounds heard are the slight variations in hiss due to erratic field disturbances...
...I am caching the goods I hauled out here in case the expedition returns still in need...I am retrieving the discarded parts for further analysis...too long spent in this utter isolation could drive a girl to madness...soon I return to known space...
--Mar Ani
(Excerpts cleared by Mansfield Family Co-Op)
Beth--
The two Kannick and single Artemis collectors were behaving very oddly. I had been watching them for a few days after I noticed a few things odd with their behavior. They never mined, they wandered about as if searching for something, and when one wandered over by me and summarily was destroyed, a replacement wasn’t called in until the whole team was down.
I was staring at the oddly beautiful fluid search pattern of these Bots when I noticed an odd modulation coming through the chat channels on the standard comm set. I tried several different approaches to isolating the coded pattern repeating in the static and interference...only to recognize a Mansfield Trading Family transmission key addressed to the Family Co-Op.
I recorded the burst, copied it, added the standard header, and retransmitted the burst on Family channels.
Unraveled--
(UIT) Senator Mannie Mansfield is my Paternal Grandfather. Known publicly for his embezzlement of several large exploration funds set up for profitable returns on deep space searches for exploitable resources and his subsequent disappearance, it is known in his family that his reasons are altruistic even if the means were underhanded.
His lifelong dream was to find where the wormhole to Old Terra moved to...Sen. Mannie spent his own sizable fortune, as well as several others, to fund an expedition for this purpose...by hook or crook, as it were.
My father had retired from a life of manufacturing widgets, when the UIT senate tapped him to repay His fathers debts and make reparations...PapaSan Mani took to a traders life in the freebus in an attempt to pay the family debt after his own fortune was depleted, and to save the family name. However, he could only start to repay UIT when he himself crumbled under the pressure.
It fell to me. Despite the fact I was raised on Sol 2, estranged almost, after recovering from a particularly viscous battle in Deneb, I found myself with outstanding fortune and a fully operational plasteel-alloy skeleton. I made enquiries and paid the UIT coffers, but the cloud remains over the Senator’s name and family. They say he’s a coward, which may mean little in the UIT, but the world in Serco space.
Helios--
I had put the coded message out of my head and was mining a itty-bitty heliocine roid I had found a few clicks from an unspecified station (trade secret) when PapaSan sent a directive.
He had decoded the transmission, which was a call from deep-deep space for assistance in the form of perishable supplies, and repair materials and tools. The signature, while garbled a bit from magnetic resonance interference, seemed to authenticate as (UIT) Senator Mannie Mansfield. The message contained explicit directions for reaching their location. I was to load up a moth with everything requested and hightail it out there, and above all, find out what they may have found and implore the Senator to return if at all possible.
Unspecified Sector/Unspecified System--
I have arrived at the location specified, but have found nothing more than a few discarded drive components, and a few screaming hot roids. I can only suppose from the lack of debris or energy sig, that repairs were made and the expedition moved on. I hope Grandpa Mannie finds what he is looking for so he can return a hero rather than a pariah.
The stars here are strange, and the comms all but silent. The only sounds heard are the slight variations in hiss due to erratic field disturbances...
...I am caching the goods I hauled out here in case the expedition returns still in need...I am retrieving the discarded parts for further analysis...too long spent in this utter isolation could drive a girl to madness...soon I return to known space...
--Mar Ani
(Excerpts cleared by Mansfield Family Co-Op)
Somewhere in Edras:
Life seems to be a waterfall this week...After recieving the invitation to Father's retirment party, I was contacted by Borb and asked to become a Lt. of ST6....
I argued with myself for at least a day about what I should do as I floated around astroids in Edras...I wasn't even looking for ore, just casting my line and seeing what I pulled back...I caught nothing, but my breath...
One part of me screams to take it...power is a means to an end...it said.
Another part of me doubted I was up to the task...certainly I have brought in a few recruitment candidates, but how hard is it to respond to inquiries? I saw myself more as a messenger, a trader, a scrounger...never in a command position...with my combat skills, who would take me?
This is the struggle I faced as I drifted....
And the timing of the promotion...sounds like ST6 is headed into difficult times...what with the prisoner escape, and the subsequent grounding of Borb, and the need to watch ones own actions better than the ones sent to watch oneself....Paranoid thoughts float by...am I being promoted to fallguy? Is ST6 losing its standing with the Serco Nation, to be made ineffectual like so many other crack teams in the galaxy? Am I just looking for excuses to say I don't want it....
Then I search my soul, and I realize there is only one answer. Honor demands that I serve in the best way I can, and if that means I must hang an albatross around my neck, so be it....
That Anchient Marineer survived his Ordeal, and what are we but flotsam on a stellar tide...flotsam that may just figure out which way the wind blows, and raise a tiny sail to tack in the face of all gales....
I'm getting so metaphorical I'm making myself sick.
I'm calling in and accepting....
LEAVING EDRAS:
Fishing with that Dirty gnome has shown me a couple things...I wonder if his story about the slave gnomes used to pack ore crates could really be true? As I watch the short men loading my Moth, I search for familial resemblances among them...I hope that they may be a tie reaching thru time to humanities roots...out into space and the long journey toward Pyronis.
ANYWAYS...
I’ve had a good nights sleep and reread my last Journal entry and I realize I need to stop hitting the apicene ore. Just another habit I need to kick...I left my stash in Edras.
In those addled ramblings I waxxed metaphoric about the possibility that ST6 is an albatross...I linked my future to the tides and myself to a speck of debris floating blissfully unaware. I wondered if that speck of me could awake and struggle mightily against the flows...BULLSHIPPY!!!
The albatross is a metaphor for a curse; an onus; a punishment for some sin...ST6 could NEVER be that for me...If anything, ST6 gave me direction when I had none...and now I will play an even greater part in its rise, or fall.
Space an ocean? I can see that...so except for the ocean metaphor, I renounce them all...
(excerpts cleared by the Mansfield Family CO-Op)
Life seems to be a waterfall this week...After recieving the invitation to Father's retirment party, I was contacted by Borb and asked to become a Lt. of ST6....
I argued with myself for at least a day about what I should do as I floated around astroids in Edras...I wasn't even looking for ore, just casting my line and seeing what I pulled back...I caught nothing, but my breath...
One part of me screams to take it...power is a means to an end...it said.
Another part of me doubted I was up to the task...certainly I have brought in a few recruitment candidates, but how hard is it to respond to inquiries? I saw myself more as a messenger, a trader, a scrounger...never in a command position...with my combat skills, who would take me?
This is the struggle I faced as I drifted....
And the timing of the promotion...sounds like ST6 is headed into difficult times...what with the prisoner escape, and the subsequent grounding of Borb, and the need to watch ones own actions better than the ones sent to watch oneself....Paranoid thoughts float by...am I being promoted to fallguy? Is ST6 losing its standing with the Serco Nation, to be made ineffectual like so many other crack teams in the galaxy? Am I just looking for excuses to say I don't want it....
Then I search my soul, and I realize there is only one answer. Honor demands that I serve in the best way I can, and if that means I must hang an albatross around my neck, so be it....
That Anchient Marineer survived his Ordeal, and what are we but flotsam on a stellar tide...flotsam that may just figure out which way the wind blows, and raise a tiny sail to tack in the face of all gales....
I'm getting so metaphorical I'm making myself sick.
I'm calling in and accepting....
LEAVING EDRAS:
Fishing with that Dirty gnome has shown me a couple things...I wonder if his story about the slave gnomes used to pack ore crates could really be true? As I watch the short men loading my Moth, I search for familial resemblances among them...I hope that they may be a tie reaching thru time to humanities roots...out into space and the long journey toward Pyronis.
ANYWAYS...
I’ve had a good nights sleep and reread my last Journal entry and I realize I need to stop hitting the apicene ore. Just another habit I need to kick...I left my stash in Edras.
In those addled ramblings I waxxed metaphoric about the possibility that ST6 is an albatross...I linked my future to the tides and myself to a speck of debris floating blissfully unaware. I wondered if that speck of me could awake and struggle mightily against the flows...BULLSHIPPY!!!
The albatross is a metaphor for a curse; an onus; a punishment for some sin...ST6 could NEVER be that for me...If anything, ST6 gave me direction when I had none...and now I will play an even greater part in its rise, or fall.
Space an ocean? I can see that...so except for the ocean metaphor, I renounce them all...
(excerpts cleared by the Mansfield Family CO-Op)
Changes:
As ST6 puts its new recruits through their paces...I notice that a lack of International trade...flying around EDRAS PELATUS AND VERSAI is like staying in a hotel in the mythical haunted town of Tombstone...private traders supply local needs...but gone are the massive convoys swimmingly like silvery-fishees...and the nations are like octopi pulling in their tentacles to defend from within inky darkness...outside the storms seem to be stronger, with stronger bots....
Father’s retirement party was very nice...everyone was there...people I haven’t seen since I left the enclave on Sol II...MamaSan flew out to help close down his office...then five days of festivities ended in a twelve hour feast...Father swears
my growing career with ST6 is not the reason the contracts dwindled...nor the reason his Itani Contacts stopped calling...nor the reason certain ore refineries started refusing outsourced work from him...He said it is merely timing...that the time had come for him to quit....
The terms of liquidation are thus: Mansfield Co-op is no more...the everyone beholden has been released...all contracts have been fulfilled...the trademarks and contact list have been placed in escrow for my future use...
PapaSan and MamaSan have made the announcement that they are expecting...that they will move back to the Naturalist Enclave on Sol 2...I am happy for them...I just hope that his mistakes with me are not repeated with my new sibling...I wish that pain on no one....
--MarAni
As ST6 puts its new recruits through their paces...I notice that a lack of International trade...flying around EDRAS PELATUS AND VERSAI is like staying in a hotel in the mythical haunted town of Tombstone...private traders supply local needs...but gone are the massive convoys swimmingly like silvery-fishees...and the nations are like octopi pulling in their tentacles to defend from within inky darkness...outside the storms seem to be stronger, with stronger bots....
Father’s retirement party was very nice...everyone was there...people I haven’t seen since I left the enclave on Sol II...MamaSan flew out to help close down his office...then five days of festivities ended in a twelve hour feast...Father swears
my growing career with ST6 is not the reason the contracts dwindled...nor the reason his Itani Contacts stopped calling...nor the reason certain ore refineries started refusing outsourced work from him...He said it is merely timing...that the time had come for him to quit....
The terms of liquidation are thus: Mansfield Co-op is no more...the everyone beholden has been released...all contracts have been fulfilled...the trademarks and contact list have been placed in escrow for my future use...
PapaSan and MamaSan have made the announcement that they are expecting...that they will move back to the Naturalist Enclave on Sol 2...I am happy for them...I just hope that his mistakes with me are not repeated with my new sibling...I wish that pain on no one....
--MarAni
RETURN TO REALITY
I have been really busy with the tying up of ends of the Mansfield Co-Op. While on Administrative leave, a plethora of changes swept thru the ST6 rank and file...I hear that the Spike is lost and destroyed...(good riddance, I never liked having "guns in the house" if ya know what I mean.) However, investigators are tearing that house apart looking for Lady Serco knows what...meanwhile the push is on for new recruits to fill holes in said ranks....a few have been buried with full honors, and a few are incommunicado, and a few are grounded pending further investigation....
So here I sit, staring once again into the future, wondering where these winds blow from and where the endless wars will take us all this time....heavy thoughts for a jumped up trader brat....but the answers will determine the fate of millions of innocents....if that isn't heavy, then nothing is....
--MarAni
I have been really busy with the tying up of ends of the Mansfield Co-Op. While on Administrative leave, a plethora of changes swept thru the ST6 rank and file...I hear that the Spike is lost and destroyed...(good riddance, I never liked having "guns in the house" if ya know what I mean.) However, investigators are tearing that house apart looking for Lady Serco knows what...meanwhile the push is on for new recruits to fill holes in said ranks....a few have been buried with full honors, and a few are incommunicado, and a few are grounded pending further investigation....
So here I sit, staring once again into the future, wondering where these winds blow from and where the endless wars will take us all this time....heavy thoughts for a jumped up trader brat....but the answers will determine the fate of millions of innocents....if that isn't heavy, then nothing is....
--MarAni
-Snap!
...That Bastard!!! He left MamaSan and BabySan on Sol 2 just like he left Mama and myself in that Naturalist Enclave so long ago.... I sent a trust to be set up, they willn’t want, but for Papa...doesn’t he see how it smudges our name!
I come from a lineage full of dishonor...I must claim the Mansfield name and make it mine alone....
I'm having trouble tracking him down with normal methods...perhaps a bounty will help....
--MAM
...That Bastard!!! He left MamaSan and BabySan on Sol 2 just like he left Mama and myself in that Naturalist Enclave so long ago.... I sent a trust to be set up, they willn’t want, but for Papa...doesn’t he see how it smudges our name!
I come from a lineage full of dishonor...I must claim the Mansfield name and make it mine alone....
I'm having trouble tracking him down with normal methods...perhaps a bounty will help....
--MAM
GROWING DUNGHEAP:
Investigation on investigation on investigation in Serco High Command...Lector on the loose again...I cannot say for sure whether Serco High Command would have taken the investigation of Nefarious deeds into it's own hands, to put him to trial...but now we may never know....
How I long for the simple days of trading and mining...the war would be great if the politics weren't involved...I have never held that the whole Itani Race should die as some do, but I do think the leadership of that sprawling society could use a purge or two...
There must be a way to appeal to the masses, to cause them to rise up, throw down their leaders, and return to peaceful prosperity...something the masses seem to believe they already have...but how much time is spent bickering over resources...how many battles take place in empty sectors with nothing to gain...how much of the GNPs is spent resurrecting clones and rebuilding pilots...shameful wastes if you ask me...
I know that people hold that the SERCO are a race of mechanical/bioengeneered rebuilds, but the truth lies in a diversity that runs both extremes...myself was refitted with a skeleton and a few implants, but before my bones were squished to jelly, they were completely 100% natural...I still maintain a fully human appearance, not like some of the grizzled old pilots who resemble cyborg nightmares...our medical expertise could benefit the Itani sure as their energy focus and powers of the mind and souls could benefit Serco...If this meld ever takes place...we might resemble the crossculture now thiving in the stations of UIT, who use what they need and ignore what they don't need...IMHO, UIT represents what may be the best hope for humanity cast adrift, the ultimate pragmatists, the ones most likely to succeed....
Still no sign of PapaSan...his transponder was reported to me as being in flight for a while, but no location was relayed...I fear he may be in flight from something...Mamasan is not as irate as I, she says she'll be fine, but my worries lie in my sister...who it seems will grow up as i did...half orphaned and dreaming dreams of a proud father living the daring life...when in actuallity he is as cowardly as he is absent....
--Verified to be the actual scribblings of MAM.
Investigation on investigation on investigation in Serco High Command...Lector on the loose again...I cannot say for sure whether Serco High Command would have taken the investigation of Nefarious deeds into it's own hands, to put him to trial...but now we may never know....
How I long for the simple days of trading and mining...the war would be great if the politics weren't involved...I have never held that the whole Itani Race should die as some do, but I do think the leadership of that sprawling society could use a purge or two...
There must be a way to appeal to the masses, to cause them to rise up, throw down their leaders, and return to peaceful prosperity...something the masses seem to believe they already have...but how much time is spent bickering over resources...how many battles take place in empty sectors with nothing to gain...how much of the GNPs is spent resurrecting clones and rebuilding pilots...shameful wastes if you ask me...
I know that people hold that the SERCO are a race of mechanical/bioengeneered rebuilds, but the truth lies in a diversity that runs both extremes...myself was refitted with a skeleton and a few implants, but before my bones were squished to jelly, they were completely 100% natural...I still maintain a fully human appearance, not like some of the grizzled old pilots who resemble cyborg nightmares...our medical expertise could benefit the Itani sure as their energy focus and powers of the mind and souls could benefit Serco...If this meld ever takes place...we might resemble the crossculture now thiving in the stations of UIT, who use what they need and ignore what they don't need...IMHO, UIT represents what may be the best hope for humanity cast adrift, the ultimate pragmatists, the ones most likely to succeed....
Still no sign of PapaSan...his transponder was reported to me as being in flight for a while, but no location was relayed...I fear he may be in flight from something...Mamasan is not as irate as I, she says she'll be fine, but my worries lie in my sister...who it seems will grow up as i did...half orphaned and dreaming dreams of a proud father living the daring life...when in actuallity he is as cowardly as he is absent....
--Verified to be the actual scribblings of MAM.
OC:
several loose logs floating out there...
Dirty Olde Gnome, posted by Mar's friend Dirty Morty...
Forgive me Mar, posted by Mar's Father as he fled Known Space...
Let the games continue!!!
_FSNI
several loose logs floating out there...
Dirty Olde Gnome, posted by Mar's friend Dirty Morty...
Forgive me Mar, posted by Mar's Father as he fled Known Space...
Let the games continue!!!
_FSNI
Update for Friends and Family, posted in Public by MMYC:
HAve awoken...my implants are mostly removed...a bug in the spellcker surfaced while in deed space far removed from the update-beams...firmware was corrupted by seemingly random emissions of unknown origens...an deep in recovery...the doctors seem to think i will fly again soon...
Personal Log, Undisclosed Location:
I am only wondering whether or not I can even apprach my former skill as a pilot and leader...my thought processes no longer follow synapses built rather than grown...speed, reflexes, are no longer what they used to be...I have yet to contact ST6 leadership, but as I am, I fear their response may not be good...I know of no Serco, surviving such a massive implant rejection...i know not what the futre will bring....
--mam
HAve awoken...my implants are mostly removed...a bug in the spellcker surfaced while in deed space far removed from the update-beams...firmware was corrupted by seemingly random emissions of unknown origens...an deep in recovery...the doctors seem to think i will fly again soon...
Personal Log, Undisclosed Location:
I am only wondering whether or not I can even apprach my former skill as a pilot and leader...my thought processes no longer follow synapses built rather than grown...speed, reflexes, are no longer what they used to be...I have yet to contact ST6 leadership, but as I am, I fear their response may not be good...I know of no Serco, surviving such a massive implant rejection...i know not what the futre will bring....
--mam