The Great Black Hole (EereE Order Space)

STELLAR REGION

Alpha-7190 Sector, Alpha Quadrant

Note: The Great Black Hole is currently declared a no-travel zone. No Starfleet vessel shall visit the region in any circumstances, under penalty of reprimand for the commanding officer and all non-objecting members of the crew.

The Great Black Hole was first known to the Federation in 2355, though not by that name. Originally the region was only labelled as a 'Hazard Zone' on Cardassian starcharts obtained by Starfleet Intelligence from enemy ships destroyed in the Federation-Cardassian War. Due to the instability of the Alpha Quadrant at the time, the area would remain unexplored until 2396.

In 2396, the Trill Science Academy determined that the last known location of a Trill expedition which disappeared over 200 years ago was near the border of the Minos Korva and Alpha-7190 sectors. The USS Oberon ferried a Trill science team to the general area, where they learned that several neighbouring civilizations in the Dubhe, Minos Korva and Betazed sectors avoided the region and referred to it as the Great Black Hole, believing it to be untraversable. While no sign of the Trill expedition was found, the Trill scientists managed to determine that this 'Great Black Hole' was in actuality a field of quantum filaments that either surrounded or covered a vast amount of space, encompassing at least three systems (which was the number detected by the Oberon's long ranged sensors).

For two decades the region would once again remain unstudied as there was no way for ships to pass into the anomaly zone. In 2416, Dr. Athena Ved of the Trill Science Academy, who had developed a prototype countermeasure against quantum filaments, chose the site for the field test of her technology. The USS Fearless, parasite craft of the USS Gainsborough, successfully entered the Great Black Hole and discovered that it only surrounded the area. Within the anomaly zone was an area of space inhabited by a spacefaring civilization which demonstrated xenophobic tendencies, engaging the Fearless in combat. The Fearless eventually came to an agreement with the natives, the EereE, agreeing to leave their space and respect their desire for isolationism.

Later that year, the USS Gainsborough briefly crossed into the anomaly zone once again to rescue a fleeing refugee trapped in the filament field. The individual recovered, Mana-Arshai Dos Sndoi'Ihaie'Vaie Nos Indoi-Ihai, provided much more information on the region beyond the anomalies. According to Mana, the area was controlled by the EereE Order, a civilization which willingly subjected themselves to be ruled by a network of artificial intelligences called the Overseer. Abiding by a strict isolationist and non-expansionary ideal, the Overseer generated the quantum filaments as an advanced minefield around their space. Within EereE space, the Overseer held dominion over three species- the avian EereE, the humanoid Arshai and the insectoid Vu'Lez.

EEREE HOMEWORLD

M-CLASS TERRESTRIAL PLANET

EereE Order Territory

POPULATION

Unknown, Billions

CLIMATE

Various

NATURAL RESOURCES

Known to contain rich deposits of aluminum and duranium

The EereE refer to their planet of origin only as the Homeworld. As many aspects of the EereE language is unpronounceable by other EereE Order members, they rely on translation technology for communication and the name of their planet has always been translated as Homeworld. This has led to the other species simply calling the planet the EereE Homeworld, and no other names for it exist.

The EereE Homeworld possesses a plethora of environments, though it is known for areas with tall mesas where the EereE are speculated to have first evolved in. A fair amount of the landscape is left untouched for nature to develop in, though many of these regions still hold remnants of structures that belonged to ancient EereE civilizations. The EereE once made use of nuclear weaponry on their homeworld but the radiation has long since dispersed, with the entire planet said to be perfectly habitable.

Urbanized parts of the EereE Homeworld are covered with massive skyscrapers which supposedly have aesthetically pleasing designs. The skyscrapers often do not possess connections to one another due to the EereE's ability to fly. Instead, many landing platforms are built into the sides.

Note: All known information on the EereE Homeworld come from second hand accounts by Mana-Arshai Dos Sndoi'Ihaie'Vaie Nos Indoi-Ihai and her drones.

SAE-EN

P-CLASS GLACIATED PLANET

EereE Order Territory

POPULATION

~400 million

CLIMATE

Polar, Tundra

NATURAL RESOURCES

Small deposits of Jevonite and Nitrium, large amounts of water ice

Sae-En, translating to 'New Home' in the Arshai language, is the planet that almost all members of the Arshai species call home. Arsae, the planet where the Arshai evolved from, was rendered uninhabitable by the advanced weaponry and resource extraction technology given to the pre-warp Arshai by the EereE. The devastation led to a mass exodus of Arshai from their homeworld and the near extinction of their species, an event which is described as the trigger for the EereE's decision to change their ways and construct the AI Overseer.

In an attempt to fix their mistake, the EereE resettled the Arshai on what is now known as Sae-En. The planet, while possessing a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, had a much lower average temperature than the EereE Homeworld and was deemed to be barely habitable by the EereE. The choice was not made to give the Arshai a poor planet which was undesirable for the EereE; while it did make efficient use of a world that otherwise held little value, the selection of planet had the Arshai's best interests in mind.

Due to the Arshai's ability to adapt their metabolism to their surrounding climate (see the Compendium of Information on the Arshai Species for more detail), Arshai lifespan was maximized in cold environments. While this meant that the Arshai took longer to mature, it also extended the rest of their life, including the amount of years during which they could reproduce. This was the most effective way to repopulate the species. With an AI regulated breeding program, including the task of actually raising the young relegated from the parents to the Overseer, Sae-En grew from its initial population of barely 50,000 to over 400 million in just four hundred years.

Even for Arshai physiology, the areas surrounding the poles of Sae-En are far too cold to live in. All Arshai settlements exist largely around the central region of the planet, with the equatorial band being the most dense and the population thinning out further away from the equator. Modern Arshai architecture is constructed with the direction and supervision of the Overseer, which performs with the most efficiency possible, resulting in all the structures on Sae-En possessing a brutalist, function-over-aesthetic style.

Note: All known information on Sae-En comes from Mana-Arshai Dos Sndoi'Ihaie'Vaie Nos Indoi-Ihai and her drones.

EESHA / FORE-ROI

F-CLASS GEOMETALLIC PLANET

EereE Order Territory

POPULATION

No Permanent Settlements on Surface

CLIMATE

Volcanic

NATURAL RESOURCES

Rich in various minerals including Magnesite, Tritanium and Topaline

The second planet in Sae-En's system is named Eesha by the EereE after a deity that an ancient EereE civilization once worshiped. The Arshai know it as Fore-Roi, which translates roughly to 'Rich Element,' expressing what the world is best known for- its abundance of natural resources. Eesha was the original reason that the EereE took control of the system, and even after 400 years resources are still being extracted, though at a careful rate managed by the Overseer.

Being so close to the star, the surface temperatures are extreme, and the geographic instability means that the thousands of volcanoes dotting its surface often erupt and cover the landscape in lakes of magma. Most mining is done by artificial intelligences linked to the Overseer network, which control mechanical constructs as small as drones and as large as entire ships and facilities. Biological lifeforms rarely set foot on the surface and instead work on small orbital refinement facilities. Most of these are EereE, but Arshai specialists and Vu'Lez larvae labourers are also employed here, making this one of the most diverse places in EereE Space.

Note: All known information on Eesha/Fore-Roi come from second hand accounts by Mana-Arshai Dos Sndoi'Ihaie'Vaie Nos Indoi-Ihai and her drones.

EEEEAI / VU'LEZ HOMEWORLD

L-CLASS MARGINAL PLANET

EereE Order Territory

POPULATION

Unknown

CLIMATE

Unknown

NATURAL RESOURCES

Rich Dilithium deposits

EeEeAi is the rough transliteration of the barely pronounceable EereE word for what the Arshai simply call the 'Vu'Lez Homeworld.' It is the home planet of the telepathic Vu'Lez insectoids and where most of the species can be found today. Little is known of its climate and landscape apart from the fact that it possesses a very rocky surface and is deemed barely habitable by the EereE, making it likely an L-Class planet by Federation classification.

The EereE first attempted to colonize EeEeAi due to the rich dilithium veins on the planet. They were opposed by the native insectoids which eventually came to be known as the Vu'Lez. Despite being more advanced, the EereE had significant trouble with the Vu'Lez due to their telepathic abilities. The Elders, Vu'Lez who had survived past metamorphosis, possessed powerful telepathy that could be used for direct mental assaults. Meanwhile the small, caterpillar-like larvae were only linked through a hive mind to one another and the Elder who had spawned them, but this gave them high coordination as well as the ability to join together into massive biological constructs.

The EereE only won the conflict by converting several Vu'Lez groups to their cause. By bringing their best philosophers and pretending they were tactical leaders, they lured the Vu'Lez into reading their minds, and several Elders found themselves agreeing with the EereE's ideals of order. With their people divided, the Vu'Lez soon fell to their new conquerors.

However, victory was not enough. The imperialist regime of the time decided to execute the Elders who did not accept their principles. Then they picked out one Elder who most closely followed the EereE ways. Vu'Lez that matured into Elders have all the knowledge and memories of a previous Elder telepathically transferred into them, but this process could be done by any Elder, not just the one that they are spawned by. While each new Elder would still hold unique traits, they generally ended up adopting similar ideals from the one they inherited knowledge from. The EereE chose the one zealot Elder to transfer his memories into every new Elder of that generation, and those Elders in turn passed it down to their successors, resulting in all modern Vu'Lez being fervent believers of EereE philosophy.

Note: All known information on EeEeAi come from second hand accounts by Mana-Arshai Dos Sndoi'Ihaie'Vaie Nos Indoi-Ihai and her drones.

Reference Documents:

Prototype Testing Report

Stardate: 93408.2AAR: Prototype Testing Report Submitted: LT KeliayaLevel 2: Confidential

On stardate 93405.7, the crew of the U.S.S. Gainsborough was selected for the testing of a prototype deflector modification, due to my involvement in the project that developed it. Headed by Athena Ved of the Trill Science Academy, the project, and our testing, seeks to eliminate the dangers of quantum filaments. Instead of detecting a quantum filament, which is very difficult due to its almost non-existent mass, the deflector modification is designed to read the resonance frequency of a filament and automatically adjust a starship's shields to counter and minimize the damage caused.

The Aquarius escort Fearless was taken to conduct the experiment on my suggestion, in order to limit losses as much as possible should something go wrong. The Fearless was staffed by a small crew, headed by Captain Lazard, while Commander Leveson-Scott took command of the Gainsborough in the commanding officer's absence.

Our destination was a region in the Alpha-7190 sector known as the Great Black Hole. Most of the sector is currently unexplored, but reports claim that the region is untraversable due to mass occurrences of quantum filaments, originally speculated to be a giant black hole when ships entering the area never returned, hence the name. As detecting filaments is difficult even when close, this region was the best way to locate one for testing.

Upon arrival, the Fearless scanned the area in order to find as many filaments as possible so we could maneuver around some of them instead of charging headlong into all of them, which increases the risk. Thanks to the Lt. Caelia's sensor work and Lt. Sh'Vethit's piloting skills, we were able to avoid several of the anomalies and our deflector modification kept the Fearless intact as we passed them by.

The quantum filaments ceased once we had cleared the thin band of them; they appeared to encircle the region, forming a barrier around it. However, once we were in, three ships approached from inside the anomalous region on an intercept course. We tried to communicate them, but neither our messages nor Lt Cmd. Eunbi's telepathic attempts proved fruitful.

The unidentified starships possessed an avian aesthetic, similar to the birds of prey employed by Klingons and Romulans, but visibly different in design. They had shielding that was slightly stronger than those used on Klingon or Romulan birds of prey and were equipped with phaser banks, albeit ones that were at least a century behind that of Starfleet's phaser technology. Their deflector array, however, appeared to be extremely powerful and their warp cores were capable of at least warp nine. Both the Fearless sensors and Lt Cmd. Eunbi's abilities confirmed that there were lifesigns on board; though details on them could not be distinguished, they did not match any known species.

Despite our best efforts to avoid conflict, the alien vessels attacked us, using their combined deflector power to seemingly generate a quantum filament. One of the ships tried to tractor the Fearless into the filament, and when we attempted to break free, a second joined in and our efforts only delayed the inevitable. Captain Lazard gave the command to retaliate, and the deflector modifications held the Fearless intact long enough for Lt. Zecou to open fire and damage one of the alien ships.

The conflict ended there as the alien vessels stopped attacking. We once again attempted to communicate with them and after several failures, we were able to find a common language in an archaic backwater dialect of Cardassian. The aliens simply prompted us to leave and we did as asked, receiving another message warning us not to return as we began to exit the region and made our way back through the filaments without incident.

The mission was a success as the experiment performed well. There are still a few improvements to be made, and it did not act as absolute protection against a quantum filament, but it is a step closer towards it and a layer of protection that may save many lives. However, Dr. Athena Ved was injured during the unidentified aliens' attack and her condition is uncertain as of the date of this report.

The unidentified aliens discovered inside the Great Black Hole possess rather advanced technology. Though their weaponry is outdated in comparison with Starfleet's, their ability to create quantum filaments and other potential methods of weaponizing their deflectors can make them dangerous. It is believed that the reason for the existence of filaments in the region is to create a protective barrier around what is supposedly their space, a minefield of anomalies. Their actions against the Fearless appear to be nothing more than defending their home, and they should not pose further danger to Starfleet or the Federation if we remain out their space. For that reason, I suggest that the region remain flagged as unsuitable for travel.

AAR 93178.8: LCDR Leveson-Scott

AAR 93663.5: CMDR Leveson-Scott