Fading Zones: Tech from the Zones

There are a number of fairly common hyper-technological items that seem to be based on Zone Technology. Their relative ubiquitousness might cause people to dismiss their unusual origins, but the literature on what early zone tech was like points to a link.

Shields: The manipulation of fields of energy for protective purposes belies a precision and incredible amounts of power. Shield technicians are a secretive bunch, actually comprising a sub-guild of the Engineers. They guard their patent zealously, and a fair number of them have exhibited low-level abilities that might be considered psychic in origin.

Flux Swords & Mist Swords: Flux swords are capable of storing a 'blade' of super-heated plasma -- already suggestive of zone-originated tech. However, mist swords -- with their psychic-enhancing abilities -- suggest and even stronger link. Given the high prevalence of psychic abilities erupting from Zone Stalkers, and, of course, from the bloodlines of Sathra cultists and from frequent jumpgate travelers using the earliest Sathra dampers, zone tech influence on these rare artifacts is almost a certainty.

Sathra Effect artifacts: These can be a holographic mandala, a deck of animated cards, a zone string banjo -- early Sathra cultists seem to have found a way to create / recreate the high from the Sathra effect. Most of these have been confiscated by the Church, and probably studied by Penitents and Engineers in an attempt to stop the effects and hopefully find the creators.

Fading Zones: Husks

The influence of the Zones allows us to revisit the Husks of the Fading Suns and cast them in different lights.

A passable half-life

It's rumored that early into the exploration of the Zones, the dead rose and took their place once more among the living. There might have been a graveyard within one of those early zones, and this might be why the overall effects were benign (as far as records tell us).

Once dead relatives came back to life, incapable of speech, but able to effect painfully slow movement.

There are no stories similar to the husk outbreaks in the era of the Fading Suns, so it's assumed that these people eventually perished along with their loved ones.

The incredible husks

In the era of the Fading Suns, outbreaks in major cities are unheard of -- they are relegated to lesser provinces and rural areas. It's suggested that damaged or malfunctioning Zone tech (or even improperly disposed of Zone tech) is responsible for this, echoing its effect from centuries before.

However, rather than bringing the dead back to life -- it seems that only their bodies are returned, and that their minds -- and souls, as all Pancreator-fearing members of the faithful will attest -- are absent and replaced by something that hungers for the living.

The reanimation also lacks the regenerative abilities of the earliest Zone records on resurrection -- the dead are often rotting or decaying, unlike their precursors, who were able to eke out a slow, silent living without rotting to death in the houses of their loved ones.

It is also suggested that the malevolence points to the influence of the dark intelligences that hunger for and hate humanity in the blackness between the stars. Or perhaps, the Zones have spawned a new form of life that might yet compete with our own.

Wandering Immortals

And there may also be those who have been granted full immortality -- blasphemy -- by the effect of the Zones. Were they these resurrected humans who managed to fade into humanity, changing locations and identities, or perhaps constantly living at the fringes of humanity to mask their longevity.

What mundane secrets might they keep close to their chests?

Fading Zones: A Nightroadside Picnic?

Hoping to contribute to the Zones community project, I began with reading the novel and pouring through source material (canon and fan-made) to get a feel for it. (Thanks for the starting logo, Hereticworks!)

As usual for me, one of the most immediate reactions is to drop it into the Fading Suns setting, one of my favorite kitchen sink settings.

Basic Premise: Aliens Among Us

In the setting of Fading Suns, humanity has encountered at least one enigmatic and powerful alien race: The Vau.

It's been hinted that they are carefully watching humans, for some reason unfathomable to the citizens of the Known Worlds. Perhaps, in addition to all the reasons cited in the books, it's because they know that we've been gifted or touched by a power that they have also encountered -- and fear.

That power is evident in the many artifacts that come from the Zones. It's rumored that the ability to activate the Jumpgates comes from technology that originated in the Zones.

Other alien races -- especially the Ur-Obun and Ur-Ukar -- are kept in the dark about the very existence of the Zones, and only a select few of the powerful factions on Terra know about the long-sequestered Zones on Earth.

On the Front Lines: Scravers & Charioteers

The Killroy sub-faction of the Charioteers therefore serves a dual purpose. Not only do they protect the value of the jumpgates for their guild; they also work to safeguard people from the potential consequences of unrestrained use of Zone technology.

Scravers have strict protocols and rumors about black technology coming from the Zone, with strict and harshly enforced rules about swift notification regarding the unauthorized use or surprise discovery of these things. In this manner, they may actually have a strange hybrid of Stalkers and Zone Police that are sent out when a new world is discovered, and evidence of Zone technology is present. There may even be an intelligence organization that exclusively tracks the flow of these items, before turning them over to the Engineers in the Guild.

Unknown Agendas: The Annunaki

Of course, one of the continuing mysteries of the setting centers around the old 'gods', the Annunaki, who are assumed to have built the jumpgates and were responsible for the Ur-Obun and Ur-Ukar races.

If they are indeed tied to the Zones, one can see the power of the lowest levels of their abilities -- creating artifacts that defy the conservation of energy, warping gravitic fields, and the strange corruptions of the strands of human fate that can result in the delayed (or passed on) fatality of many a human line.

Future Posts: Greater Detail

So these are just the broad strokes. More detailed examples will be forthcoming in this series of posts.