Dunwich Article

[b][u][center][large]76th Fleet Investigating “Growing” List Of Entire Colonies Disappearing Without A Trace[/large][/center][/u][/b]
[small][i]6.30.2460[/i]

[center]Admiral Lian Zhu of the 76th has released an official report to the press describing her investigation into an increasing number of disappearances of entire colonies in the Frontier. These developments have been unknown until now, as each incident has taken place deep in frontier space. Despite the remote locations, so far an alarming number of people have disappeared without a trace.

The report begins with the Dunwich Vanishing. On May 1st the independent mining colony of Dunwich released a brief distress signal to a nearby Elyran outpost 65 lightyears away. Dunwich was a colony of 150 residents living in a station embedded on the surface of a large asteroid. The Elyran corvette Aarash responded to the distress signal first. It bluespaced just a kilometer from the asteroid and its Captain Almeida attempted to contact the colony. They were met with complete radio silence. The colony was completely undamaged, so Almeida docked with the station and its contingent of marines boarded.

After conducting a full sweep of the colony, Captain Almeida reported that all 150 residents of Dunwich were missing. The report was sent to Elyra’s naval command. Despite Almeida describing a total lack of any signs of weapons fire, Elyran officials believed this to be a pirate raid and contacted Admiral Zhu for assistance in locating and rescuing the colonists.

Zhu received the transmission and agreed to dispatch three corvettes to assist in the search, but as of this report’s publishing none of the residents have been found. Pirates caught and interrogated in the area also expressed a complete ignorance as to what occurred in Dunwich.

Next the report describes the Miskaton Vanishing. On May 25th Zhu responded to a distress signal from the Kandahar Colony, situated relative south of the Frontier Alliance over 40 light-years into independent space. The colony was a small, semi-habitable world with a population of 12,400. The planet had been recently petitioned to join the Frontier Alliance and its leader, Governor Ashwald, had been hosting debates with the planet’s parliament.

A Battlecruiser of the 76th warped into orbit of the planet and broadcasted a message of its arrival. They were met with complete silence. Transport shuttles departed from the cruiser and entered the atmosphere, approaching the capital town of Farzaad’s Landing. When landing in the shuttleport the marines described an eerie atmosphere. The report includes transcripts from Commander Wallace, who lead the landing teams.

https://i.imgur.com/AENi3ys.png
The second to last section of the report describes the final Vanishing incident on June 21st, on the hydroponic station Xi’han. A merchant vessel had attempted to dock with the station, but found no one present in the cargo loading area. In attempting to find the quartermaster the merchants found the place abandoned, and quickly left and contacted Alliance authorities.

The incident was originally investigated by Admiral Marc Hamil of the 99th Fleet, but he turned over the investigation to Admiral Zhu. Zhu herself was present on her flagship cruiser Advent when it warped to the colony. She boarded the station with the team of marines. After eight hours of turning the place inside out, their exhaustive efforts found nothing.

At the end of the report Zhu describes the phenomenon she has coined Vanishing Incident.

In each Vanishing Incident, an entire community vanishes without a trace. On the stations, there are never any signs of armed assault. There are no signs of a violent boarding attempt. There are no breaches, no dismantled windows, no cut grilles. Automated systems continue to function unless the length of time between the vanishing and discovery are so extended that they become damaged or nonfunctional from a lack of maintenance. We have found evidence of survivors locking themselves in sealed rooms which required our own marines to utilize plastic explosives to enter, and even in these situations we found the occupants had vanished. The only evidence of their previous occupation within these locations are personal possessions.

In one of these cases, we were left a note taped to the wall of a Xi’han maintenance closet. The door had been bolted and welded shut. Inside was several unopened emergency rations, a used flare, and an energy pistol. On the wall we found on the note a scrawled statement.

[/small][b][center]“They are Yee Naaldlooshii”[/center][/b][small]
Based on assembled evidence, I have the following hypothesis for what is taking place. A group of raiders has created a new doctrine of infiltration and kidnapping, allowing them to seize entire populations within the span of only a few hours and abscond with all of the occupants. This will lend itself to immediate mythological association by the victims who had time to write warning.
https://i.imgur.com/XSgTGJZ.jpg
The location of events also seems to follow a predictable path. I have included a map that shows each incident. There were several others not included in this report in-depth due to security concerns. When each site is connected, they form a path. First Dunwich, then Miskaton, then Kandahar, then Xi'han. It is my theory that the next Vanishing Incident may take place within the star system of Tau Ceti.[/small]