RDF-Christiaan Huygens, Approaching the Unknown Wanderer, Out Past the Southern Fringe of the Milky Way Galaxy... The Late End of '183...
"...fascinating! It's very... Well, red, isn't it?" Director Vermir asked as he considered the near-crimson sphere that stretched across the center of the forward display. By now he was at least somewhat familiar and thus comfortable with 'Huygens bridge, its layout, and the various technologies available; one bridge being very much like another despite the ships that contained them being quite different one from another. Still, his preference was the two-dimensional image projected against the forward-most wall. It most reminded him of the images captured from his own telescope or printed out in the local newspaper.
"Not being completely familiar with all of the various vessels and craft popular to the galaxy, I would still say that it is something of an unusual color. And, one supposes, an unusual size as well..."
Here he had been forced to defer to the image as projected into the central holo-sphere. This showed the approaching object as being in the center while the much (much) smaller Exploration Command starship was portrayed as merely a small dot at nearly the Captain's feet - or trunk, if one preferred. With those species possessed of two or more arms it was often possible to read something into their thoughts by how they held themselves and those same appendages but for the Captain one had to pay attention to the posture and motion of her trunk - and that was a trick he was still getting used to!
"Very - nearly two hundred thousand kilometers in radius;" according to the scale presented across the middle latitude of the holo-sphere; "not the largest single object I've ever seen or heard of, but it's up there! Lieutenant Commander Win'X," her trunk snaked over her shoulder to inquire of the being who sat at the sensor console, "why is it red?"
"Paint?" came the obvious answer.
"As good of an answer as any," Vermir said with a quick smile, turning to nod together with his colleague, Mister Belriose. The Khenalian was standing in the Director's literal shadow, though the two had been in identical conversation since he had come aboard. Two hours had passed like seeming moments with the two comparing notes and constructing a shared hypothesis as to what they would possibly find. "And is it, as we have surmised, in the range of billions of years old? What, if I might ask, is its projected course? Is it, as I would now say is confirmed, of extra-galactic origin?"
With the touch of a few buttons, the image in the holo-sphere zoomed way, way, way out to show exactly that - the Local Group and then the Virgo Cluster and finally the Super-Cluster with the object's projected course and trail taking a meandering path through all of the above. Of particular note was the distant beginning of the red-marked line, which Vermir approached to study at some length.
"Hmmph - yes, exactly. These projections - how accurate are they?" he asked of the science officer.
"Baring any course corrections undertaken by the object itself, very. Nine-nines."
"That would seem difficult, though if one is building an object of this size then it seems fair to assign them a certain level of competence," Cleon offered, though the projected course expanded into a long, thin cone even as he spoke with the base just touching what was left of the most likely candidate. "But it would make sense that the galaxy it left would be the one where there was the most need to do so."
"...and I would have agreed with you as of five minutes ago, my friend," Vermir nodded enthusiastically. "But that was five minutes ago - and I suspect our travelling hypothesis has been completely debunked, as the Humans are fond of saying!"
"Which was?" Captain Kayaveola interjected.
"A worldship," the Khenalian explained. "Though I'm sure we're all at least somewhat familiar with the concept? A planet-scale vessel built around an artificial Oxygen-Neon-Magnesium star. Often used as an 'evacuation' or 'colony' ship - though this is mostly speculative, as while several have been built by civilizations in our galaxy... I cannot recall any as having actually been put to either use. Given the enormous timescales that would be required to build even one, it would seem to be of little surprise that those we've encountered previously have all been destroyed or abandoned either during construction or before they could be completed."
"These 'oxygen-neon-magnesium' stars - they're quite small for a star - correct?"
"Very - this object is certainly capable of containing one - but here it is our hypothesis as to the purpose which seems to have been challenged," he answered.
"And your new theory?" the Captain asked with a wave of her trunk towards the object at the center of the screen.
"Would you like to?" Mister Belriose asked of his colleague, gesturing the Director forward.
"I'll give it my best," though instead of stepping forward he instead turned inside his own radius and walked back to pace in front of the forward display, indicating this detail or that as he talked. "Yes - a worldship, though neither a colony vessel nor one meant for evacuation. In fact, I suspect we will not find life of any sort aboard, except perhaps of the electronically simulated variety. You see, this vessel appears to be an observatory of sorts - something I am reputedly familiar with!" he said with a fluttering laugh.
"These," he indicated the surface, which was covered in regular hexagons of small-yet-still-enormous size, "are receivers of various kinds. Light, radio - others perhaps discovered - and note that the object is rotating and at a slight axial tilt to its direction of travel. This then allows the various receivers to take measurements from various angles as they pass a given point in space, which then allows for more information to be extrapolated. However, it is more than that - it is also... I believe it to be what we might call a museum, or perhaps an archive."
"What makes you think this?"
"Because it is talking to us," he answered conclusively.
"Talking to us? Speaking of," and she turned to the communications station, "Has there been any attempt to contact us?"
All it took was a shake of the duty officer's head for the Director to engage and elaborate on his point, "Not directly though. Note that there is a pattern here," and again his massive fingers pointed to a specific set of hexagons. "These here - darker then lighter then darker, darker, lighter... Zero, then one, then two, then three - and so forth. The very simple beginnings of a shared communications reference point. I suspect that if this pattern is analyzed by your computer, as doubtless they intended, it will resolve itself into a formal system for communications."
"That makes me think that you think they are wanting us to come take a look, Director. Not that I'm objecting," Kayaveola added.
"...it kinda looks like they are hoping we do," the science officer interjected. "I've put the pattern into the system but I picked one out as well - it repeats six times and all six repetitions converge at the poles. Where there just happens to be something that really looks like a docking facility," he finished. "Might be worth a careful look," the reptilian added.
"Then a careful look it is," Kayaveola replied, pointing her trunk to the helmsman. "Make it so..."
