This is a report on all the findings from our salvage operation on the Initiative combat vessel (ICV) 'black phoenix', better known as 'the satyr' for it's ability to evade and then utterly confuse our sensor equipment. I doubt I need to remind anyone who has had the misfortune of engaging this vessel of it's capabilities to evade sensor detection. Though, contrary to all of our hypothesies there was no evidence of a broken or intact cloaking device of any kind on the phoenix... Meaning that it was indeed perfectly 'visible' all during it's voyage through Xiscapain, former federation, and finally Romoderos space. By visible I mean that someone on a patrol vessel could have poked their head out into empty space and actually saw the thing if it was close enough. Many have wondered how this is possible, well my team and I have the answer. The entire hull of the satyr was 'bumpy' as one intern described it, not smooth like most 'mass produced' hulls are. We found that the entire hull of the satyr encapsulated miniature crystals.
There were literally millions of these crystals embedded inside what we could salvage of the satyr. We expected them to be merely cosmetic, a sign of Captain Koi's high social and military status. Though we found the entire surface was utterly impossible to scan with any of our equipment, even imported Xiscapian equipment couldn't get an accurate reading on what the material was. Then painstakingly cut the crystals out of a section of the hull and we made two discoveries.
The first was that the hull of the vessel was likely made of an odd combination of materials, a ceramic, tri-stronium, neutronium mix to be precise. When tested we found that it was incredibly resistant to anything but neutronium armor piercing rounds and warheads of the same type. It was especially to energy weapons of nearly any kind aside the gauss cannon which a certain cybernetic attache was eager to lend us. This might have made the difference between 'the hunt for the satyr' taking mere hours and the weeks it actually did take.
The second was that these crystals were actually the secret of why the vessel was hidden for so long. The initiative was actually 'overkilling' the sensor depravation effect these crystals emitted. I calculated that it would only take twenty thousand crystals fitted strategically to produce the same effect but then again it has been concluded that, the satyr was indeed a prototype vessel. In any case these crystals, dubbed 'UK-3321' until we've got a proper name for them, don't absorb sensor signals but instead reflect them in nearly all directions and when an electric current is applied to the crystals every single known wave we use to scan objects simply passes through as though the sensors were scanning empty space.
To put it bluntly they didn't need a cloaking device the simply made the hull immune to most scanning equipment. The drawback to this is that they had to put so much power into their hull that they couldn't fit the satyr with any sort of shield technology. Even if they could the shield would give away the position of the vessel unless they found a way to 'project' this sensor immunity into a coherent energy field that's tangible enough to stop a neutronium round aimed for the bridge.
That is if 'attacking' is really what you're doing to this vessel and not on the recieving end of what we call 'Pico-matter'. We managed to recover many of the rounds that the satyr fired against us and we found something amazing. The shell itself is a casing protecting an array of ultra thin 'gel' capsules, in the capsules there are literally trillions of nearly subatomic machines lying dormant, waiting for the head of the shell to break open which is their activation signal. These machines are actually smaller than nano-machines, three times smaller to be exact. They are pico-machines, where one could only fit a couple thousand nano machines now they can insert millions of pico machines with the same or better results.
The pico machines are organized in 'hives' of four to ten trillion each where several 'king' machines process the data sent from the controlling vessel and 'queen' machines produce or send kill commands as nessicary according to their task. Each palm sized gel pack contains around seven 'hives' and with around a hundred packs in each shell literally billions of these machines are sent out with each round. When the hive activates, the machines separate, then they start to release a built in chemichal that reacts to the gel substance they're swimming in making it burn like an anti matter discharge. the pico machines separate as not to damage each other during this reaction and to spread the gel to it's maximum effective area. When the chemical discharge is expended the pico machine joins a massive 'herd' to find more material that can be consumed to make another reaction. If no materials are found then the queen engages her own kill command killing all the pico-machines in the hive. We found notes that the capabilities of the hives were being expanded beyond simply being a catalyst for a superconductive reaction but we found no physical evidence on the satyr.
Though that's not the most amazing thing we've found about the satyr. The most amazing thing we studied were the remnants of the gravitational core they were using to power the vessel. The satyr was also missing an artificial gravity generator as well as the afforementioned cloaking device and shield projector. They simply didn't need one, the ship itself produced and regulated it's own gravity. In short like a planet. Since the core was virtually obliterated when the satyr tried to destroy herself we couldn't reverse engineer it to find out any of it's secrets. However we did manage to interrogate some of the surviving engineering crew and found out bits and pieces of information among seemingly encoded slogans, brainwashing, and other anti interrogation measures.
In short the satyr was the closest thing to a miniature planet, at least energy wise, that we know of that has been artificially produced as well as the engines. Some of my staff privately hope for another initiative incursion simply for the opportunity to study what must have been a marvel of movement. We have concluded from engineering testimony, recovered ship's logs and the remnants we managed to salvage from the engine section that the satyr wasn't built in our universe. It was actually built in the 'home' galaxy and came here alone.
This means initiative has discovered the means to not simply cross galaxies but entire universes. Meaning that if they were to mount a second campaign against our galaxy, they could strike from any point at any time they pleased. They don't need to build gates or any other intricate works to maintain a supply line, they can simply send the resources through any channel they could. The worst news about this is our intelligence division has finally verified the reports from Romodosean agents that initiative shipyards are producing 'satyr' class vessels, albeit slowly since they do not have the actual 'satyr' to work from. Though they also add that their interest is shifting from this galaxy to others. This may be mixed news, good because we won't see that incursion for a time, but bad because when they do finally come we might be facing not seventy or sixty planet's worth of industry as we were during the first conflict.
The combined forces of this galaxy may have to defeat several thousand vessels just to turn away a single initiative 'fleet' a few centuries from now. I would like to say my team found more, found the source of the 'zombie' units that had been reported, found the actual 'command center' of the vessel, found out what the 'soul' room in the satyr's blueprint was and most importantly, a possible map to produce these wonderful things.
Chiefly however I hope this report becomes a rallying cry, something that this nation and quite possibly this galaxy uses to highlight the threat that these people pose to us. I also hope despite my findings that this galaxy remains free from all tyranny, especially the genetic slavery that seems to be right around the corner.
