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Maxsaeli — The Rimdweller encounter
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Published: 2021-10-30 16:22:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 3551; Favourites: 35; Downloads: 1
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Description
In the world of Assembly, all of the intelligent life stems from Founders in one way or another – either by being directly created “ex nihilo” or “ascended” from some naturally-occurring, much more primitive proto-lifeforms. Even though rare sapient species do arise here and there from time to time, none of them had ever managed to reach the interstellar level by themselves, leaving them no other choice but to pray for salvation by the Founders’ creatures.
But all the rules are proven by their exceptions!
* * *
The so-called "Rimdwellers" have many names – and any traveler with at least a pinch of self-respect should be able to recall at least one story about meeting these elusive beings somewhere in the far reaches of the Outer Circle. The contents of such stories can vary considerably. Some say that Rimdwellers never make contact with Assemblians, preferring to just stare ominously from afar and mysteriously vanish as soon as you approach them. Others say that Rimdwellers themselves came to them, appearing out of nowhere and asking some cryptic questions – or even coming to the rescue during some dangerous events, such as a skirmish with some feral demigod, only to disappear afterward without saying a word. In any disaster, there will always be someone who will claim that they saw one of them in the distance mere minutes before the calamity – and numerous people who visited the stillborn cities just can’t stop rattling about noticing their shadowy figures in the gaping windows of the warped houses.
The only consistent thing of these stories, however, is their unreliability. For despite the countless anecdotes, there is very little actual information about these beings.
The exact time of their first appearance is unclear, as the earliest surviving records of them were largely corrupted, leading to the disrupted dating – and their true origin is shrouded in mystery.
Judging by the available data, this species seems to have a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, creating temporary settlements on various planets, only to leave them several centuries after. Unlike the biomechanical cities of Assembly, the Rimdwellers’ settlements are completely mechanical, which means that they quickly erode as soon as they are left without maintenance. Several ruins on deserted planets have been presumed to be the remains of such settlements – but their condition at the time of discovery was already too deplorable to tell anything significant about their unseen builders.
No one has ever seen their ships – but many space pilots can tell you about mysterious artificial objects that occasionally flash at the edge of their radars. These objects do not make contact – and upon being approached, they always make a hyper-jump, disappearing from the field of vision. All attempts to capture them with the standard warp dampers were unsuccessful, suggesting that if these truly were their ships, then they are probably using some drastically different method of FTL travel compared to the rest of the world. Perhaps, this would also explain the mysterious disappearances so often attributed to them by various travelers. Perhaps, it would not.
And considering all of the above, it is not surprising that for a long time, many Assemblians – especially those living in the Inner Circle – considered Rimdwellers to be nothing more than a myth, born from incorrect decryptions of pre-war archives and wild speculations of narrow-minded amateur historians.
Until, of course, the finally found a body!
It is said to have been discovered in the ruins of Quatarion-112 of the Sixth Branch – a medium-sized town ravaged in a sudden attack by a feral god.
In accordance with the standard protocol, the body was sent to the Thanatory along with other found corpses for analysis and subsequent recycling. However, as soon as the carcass had arrived to its destination, it became clear that it did not belong to any of the known species at that time. And filled with curiosity, local thanatologists proceeded to investigate, attempting to trace the origin of the strange remains. They disassembled them with a great thoroughness, sucking out all the available data as carefully as possible – and with each new conclusion it became more and more clear that the way this being was put together just didn’t fit into the Founders’ paradigm.
The question of whether this means that Rimdwellers’ are, indeed, unrelated to all other life in the Assembly or not is still hotly debated.
Here are some of the most notable details that set them apart from everyone else:
- all tissues had clear signs of progressive cellular deteriorations, suggesting that the specimen was only able to function only for a limited amount of time (theorized to be about a few centuries at most).
- it seems that the creature lacked true regeneration and was only able to repair the minor injuries in rather imperfect way, leaving noticeable patches of rough tissue. Some body parts even bear the signs of artificial reparation via the various surgeries.
- in additions to the circulatory system, the creature also had network of branching organic “wires” capable of delivering energy to the muscles in a form of electric charges. It was also connected to the four structures on the lower thorax acting like a sort of organic outlets – apparently, they were used to power and control the modular armor/exoskeleton the creature was wearing.
- no vocalization organs were found – but instead, the creature possessed what appear to be a biological radio transceiver in its chest, suggesting some kind of electromagnetic communication.
- instead of a brain, there was a hollow cavity accessible through the narrow orifice in the back of a head. It was surrounded by a few ganglia – presumably meant to process sensory information – and had multiple neural endings converging towards it, forming what can only be described as a biological circuitry socket.
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