Comrade's Wargames

Memorex
To: Prelate Chrydriik Guillurus, Macrotechnia Technographica Determinus
From: SubCadre Commander Uriel Vare
Re: Caluphel Reemergence Hyper Strategy, Research Directory
Date: 2 150 941.M41

Sir.

Per your Directive, I am attaching the first documents on Caluphel Prime. As you are aware, the Caluphel system was originally settled ~ 570.M27 during the so called Dark Age of Technology. With the records relocated during the Unification Wars 800.M30, it was concluded that the Caluphel System had become lost in space, time and warp during the intervening period.

With the recent re-discovery of Caluphel and the landing of Imperial forces, certain documents pertaining to the settlement and abandonment/loss of Caluphel have become available to us. These documents and records are a mixture of official report filings from various tech-priests (ne:scientists) of the Expeditionary Force as well as Personal Logs and transmission recordings. In my subsequent reports, I will submit these various documents in rough chronological order, rather than by topic/sacred order. Additional technical data for each can be found on Web.rMTD.x12v465 in your personal terminal node.

In the Emperor’s name.

Vare

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System Report, 0.0.0, 2735 estimated.

Exogeologist Janen Peh Lyn

Jack,

How are you? I hope you are well and this transmission reaches you safely. When the Expeditionary Force left Iscandar Station, you were about to propose to Xi – I hope she said yes. Tell her that if it doesn’t work out, she’s welcome to visit me on Caluphel once we have running water. Jesting! I should give my official report here as well.

Captain Hayes and his navigator made a safe Insertion to the calculated Mandeville Point of Caluphel. My understanding was that the Emergence point was off by well over 72k, considered an outlier of the jump calculation models. No official statement by the Command, other than this contingency had been accounted for, the fleet was not in any danger and we were now moving into orbit above Caluphel.

Still, I’ve never heard of a jump going this wrong. Hopefully this is the last of our bad luck. I know, I know, there isn’t such a thing as luck. . . just low probability events.

The Caluphel System matches probe data perfectly. Five planets and asteroid belt in orbit around a binary red-white dwarf pair.

• Prime: Chthonian planet in close orbit to the twin suns. Tidal locked. No moons.
• Asteroid Belt
• Secundus: Gas Giant. 5 moons, 1 likely inhabitable.
• Tertius: Mini-Neptune, frozen ocean. 2 moons, both with volcanic activity
• Quartus: Major planet, terrestrial.
• Quintus: Centaur planet (minor)

The red-white dwarf pair is interesting, as is the tidal-locked nature of Caluphel Prime. The leading theory is that the red dwarf star is the forming agent for this system and that the planets formed along with the condensation and fusion ignition of that sun. In this theory, a rogue white dwarf star entered the system at some point and was captured by the red into a binary. This theory makes sense due to the extreme age difference between the red and white dwarfs; white dwarfs are simply red or yellow stars that have burned through their gaseous fuel but do not have the mass to supernova. However, given the moderate temperature of this white dwarf (3270k), it is one of the oldest stars in the universe. Meanwhile, the red star is only a few billion years old; fairly young.

In any case, with this theory, the newly formed red-white binary would have had sufficient mass to draw in and tidally lock the chthonian prime planet at a distance of 0.23 Au. Normally, this would be close enough to burn off all atmosphere and life on the planet, but the extreme age of the white dwarf must have limited the impact of that event, albeit confining the remaining life to a ringed habitable zone.

Fortunately for the remaining life, the addition of the white dwarf substantially increased the light radiation from the suns, from a narrow IR band previously to full-spectrum light with a UV peak. As is apparent from long-range photos, the green of photosynthesis is present.

The Asteroid Belt is a mystery at this point. I have my sensors directed at Prime for the moment, but am interested to determine the age of the Belt. When did it form and when is the predicted re-coalescence? So many mysteries, actually. I can’t wait.

I’m attaching a data dump from my system scans and orbital mass readings. Should be enough to get your charts updated and models running.

Give my best to Xi!

Janen

Transmission ends.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

This bit of electrifying fluff was submitted by Paul, one of my friends and co-conspirators on the Caluphel project. We’ve been bouncing ideas around for a few weeks, and Paul was particularly interested to start developing the backstory of this lost colony. Check back soon for more!