Report on 'The Crucible'

Report on 'The Crucible'
Compiled from the reports of 19 captured individuals, editted by Crewwoman Sparzy.

Subjects: A group of creatures derived from common rats, with human-level intelligence. Lack of surgical scars on the common or security rats implies the alterations from base are genetic, though there are special rats with fresh alterations who appear infrequently, usually under guard, so they possess the ability to self-modify. They seem to operate out of a series of facilities called Crucibles, which appear to either be in space, or the void outside reality. References imply there were at most 25 of these Crucibles, and several are now inoperable.

Origins: Unclear - The rats refer to a singular 'Creator' as if it was a bad thing, a horrible being to cursed them to incomplete existence. Who this Creator is, and whether they're still alive, is unclear, but what is clear is that they now follow beings known as The Beautiful Ones, who have complete authority and a pseudo-religious following amongst the masses. Messages are transferred from the Beautiful Ones through an Administrator caste, and enforced by the Security division in Crucible 11 (Damaged Now?).

Objectives: The average rat seems to want little but food, breeding rights and a chance for promotion, or transfer to another Crucible which suits them better. Many seek to become part of Security or Administration, while other want to be part of the 'Changing Lives' in the Simulations. Organisationally, their objective is to gain influence and knowledge, using their portals to network people and organisations across Toholon, and use the resulting leverage to extract resources and political capital.
Ideologically, their overall objective, as demanded by the Beautiful Ones, is to access 'True Reality'. It appears their experience with their Creator has convinced them that the Crucibles are a sham, and they sought to access Toholon, only for it to disappoint them on some level. Thus, they are convinced that Toholon is merely the work of another, more powerful but equally reprehensible Creator or Creators, and that a higher level of reality must exist which is not created, but exists for its own sake.
Their short-term objective is to make contact with a group they have codenamed 'The Precursors', who live in a different reality to Toholon. They identified these creatures as the makers of the Kaiju, sending them to Toholon through dimensional portals. To this end, they captured scientists to create an 'Emissary', who would both survive in the Precursors world and communicate to them the wishes of the Beautiful Ones. This project was badly damaged in the raid, and it seems unlikely the rats could finish their genetic monstrosity without external help.

Capabilities:
Portals: The Rats have powerful technology for generating portals, allowing them to move agents around the world quickly and safely. Rat-sized portals need little external equipment, but larger portal, even big enough for vehicles, can be created with the right stabiliser frameowrks. It seems each crucible has its own system for creating portals, but the overall control of the system is split between Crucibles 1, 3, 11 and 25, and several of those have been badly damaged lately.
Human Suits: The rats seem reluctant to use human agents as anything more than distant proxies, as only rats and rat-derived creatures can be trusted. There are implications of rat-human hybrids created for interactions in the past, but in our subjects experience, such business is now done with robotic vehicles covered in realistic skin, piloted by 1 or more rats. Most of these suit-vehicles are basic, requiring 5-6 rats working in concert to make something as strong as a human, but tougher models are known, as are non-humanoid vehicles
Time Dilation: Evidence from the scientists, and from the mismatches of time experienced by the raid team versus the ship, imply that time naturally passes 3-4 times faster on the Crucibles than on Toholon. There's evidence that the rats can control this to some degree, with scientists on the Emissary project demanding 'a fresh generation of samples', only for new organs to be available 2 or 3 sleeps later. Different Crucibles on Different Timestreams? The scientists report that 'Simulations' were constantly being referenced in other Crucibles, to accurately determine both political and scientific outcomes, rather than waste time with lab experiments. The effect of this time dilation on the population is unclear, but there must be a reason they keep things at a steady pace most of the time.
DNA Manipulation: A secondary use of the Simulations is to create rat-based creatures with different DNA types on short notice. It's clear that the rats have some access to kaiju DNA, and have found a way to harvest more of it as they need. There seems to be some kind of 'farm' for kaiju-derived organs on one of the crucibles, and while it's not a constant supply, it is reliable enough for the needs of the Emissary Project. (Editors note - Now I'm not saying anything is Zella's fault, but...)
Self Hypnosis?: Intellect Davies theorized that the extensive use of symbology and ritual proclamation implied a societal level of subconscious control. On their own, the rats have relatively developed senses of free will and self-determination, but the symbols and phrases of the Beautiful Ones, who are never seen or heard directly, still induce fear and obedience in the populace. It's unclear how much is indoctrination in the breeding crucibles, how much is the zealous removal of rats with disobedient or seditious thoughts as they grow up, and how much is done with technological hypnosis and pheromones.

Operations:
Emissary Project
Retrieval of Kaiju DNA
Tipping us off about the Matango Island kaiju egg
Tipping us off about the Potion Machine
Creating false companies and reseearch groups to feed data to others
Breaching the dimensional barriers to another reality
Capturing Intellects and other experts, mainly for the Emissary Project
Attempting to decode how to talk to the Precursors (Some progress made)